Legend of the Harp Episode III: The Crucible
by Hemaccabe
Summary: The Harp continues to build his own resistance movement with more ships, troops and wealth. However, not every problem can be solved with such tools and some of those problems may test one to the very edge!
1. Chapter 1

**Legend of the Harp**

 **Episode III: The Crucible**

 **Chapter 1: Long Road**

Author's Note: There is very little known or published in canon about the time directly after the end of the Clone Wars. Episode I and II of Legend of the Harp covered that time period and this author did his best to reflect the most likely circumstances and what is known from canon. Episode III now moves us into a time period that is much better known, the period just prior to the Battle of Yavin, roughly along the same time period as Rebels season 3. This period is covered by both Star Wars Rebels and Rogue One as well as other canon sources. My assumption, as an author, is that you are conversant with these properties as well as the Original Trilogy. So, Spoiler Alert.

While I pointed to reasons in my last novel why the Empire may have been popular. Clearly what we see in Rebels and, more importantly, the way we see how comfortable Luke is explaining to Obi Wan how much he hates the Empire, that the Empire is now having some trouble.

*** Jedi Knight Furin Kazan, above Solo-Ki ***

We had emerged close to the main planet of Solo-Ki. The Imperials were using the nearly empty and very unpleasant planet as a concentration camp for political prisoners from Spires.

This mission was a big change from the way we had done previous missions. This was the first mission we did not bring every available ship. This was the first mission both Jojo and I had not both gone on since we had reunited. It seemed very dangerous, like we were splitting our forces.

"We have discussed this Love. Now breath." Sky's voice played like music through my head.

I breathed. The Force was with me and this felt right, even if it was scary. It made sense to leave some of our assets behind. If everything was in one place, at one time, we could lose everything in one moment. Even if we were destroyed here, some part of our rebellion would survive.

I was on a landing ship, a UT-60D, which was still on our carrier, Mygeeto. I watched the battle unfold through the eyes of Sky, who was alone on Revenge.

Exxelon's engines poured out thrust hard as she dived down toward the Venator class Star Destroyer that had unwisely decided to sit low above the planet, deep within the gravity well. The position in the gravity well was why our new Fleet Commander, Commodore Spruance, had chosen to come in close rather than far, to make sure they didn't have a chance to raise their orbit. Being low in the gravity well was intimidating to people on the ground. It would allow the Star Destroyer to use it's guns to try and control the situation on the surface. The tradeoff was, such a position put a capital ship at a terrible disadvantage in a direct confrontation with a peer. Eventually, we would teach the Imperials not to do it anymore. Until then, we would be happy to take the cheap victories.

The Venator was a little concerning though. Our recon, a small droid scout, had shown one of the Empire's new Star Destroyers where the Venator now sat. It wouldn't be impossible that they pulled the newer Star Destroyer to more demanding duty after no immediate efforts to rescue the Spires prisoners had materialized, leaving an older and less valuable Venator as guard.

Unnecessarily, I thought to Sky, "Watch out for traps. That other Star Destroyer may still be out there. This could be a trap."

Sky and Revenge were on high-guard as Revenge had the best sensor suite in the fleet. High-guard's primary job was to watch for ambushes. Sky was not stupid or forgetful, so it was really pointless for me to say what I just had.

"It's just nerves Love, I understand. I'm watching as carefully as I can." Sky replied kindly, calming me.

Which I knew was true.

I watched through Sky's eyes as Exxelon unleashed a full broadside on the Venator. The Venator's shields buckled, she then started taking serious damage.

Exxelon didn't wait to see the outcome of her first broadside and fired a second broadside. That was more than enough.

The Venator had gotten off only a few panicked shots before she was destroyed. The shots had bounced off Exxelon's shields.

A handful of small craft made it off the Imperial ship's decks but were rapidly shot down by Exxelon's secondary guns and escort fighters.

The Venator had many unsurvivable wounds but she would be killed by her frame giving way. We watched as the spine of the ship broke in three places and she fell to the ground in a rain of burning metal. No escape pods made it off.

Exxelon immediately began moving off to assume a position of high guard. The possibility of ambush or trap remained high. 

"You know," Sky began, "I know you miss your spice sticks and brandy, but if you had not made the Change, you would be sitting in that landing craft ignorant. Perhaps we could have strung something up, but nothing as convenient or secure."

"That's true. I can't imagine the anxiety I'd be feeling right now if I didn't know what was going on."

Mygeeto and Lola Sayu, our Light Carrier/Landing ships were moving into position now to put us on the planet. Soon we would launch. There, I could feel the burst of thrust as we pushed out of the landing bay to our destination. I would lead on the ground. The commander of the ground battle would be our new Colonel Bayonet from aboard Lola Sayu.

Mygeeto and Lola Sayu would have dispersed their compliments of fighters. Each was carrying a squadron of X-Wings in addition to landing ships.

I watched as Mygeeto and Lola Sayu's guns silenced defensive cannons, blasted towers, fences, and got our opposition infantry's heads down.

My landing craft touched down hard. The sides opened and the troops, including Shield and me, raced out. There was immediate opposition fire.

"Follow ME!" I yelled with as much authority as I could. I had the Force guiding my hand as well as the map from Revenge, courtesy of Sky, giving me enormous situational awareness. I was listening to the feed from Colonel Bayonet as well as chatting with Sky.

I jumped a barrier and leapt into the midst of the enemy. I was controlling my movements and leading the men behind me. The Storm Troopers were fierce and surprisingly well trained. Their boots dug into the turf and they began to fire in formation. I could feel an enemy sniper about two hundred meters behind me through the Force. The enemy troops never buckled and ran. The sniper was lining up her shot carefully. She had a very powerful rifle. Her scope was full of sophisticated technology. Second by second, the sniper was zooming in on the perfect kill shot, to kill me. Unfortunately for the troopers, the double light sabers I held in each upper hand deflected almost everything. Still the troopers were flooding me, it reminded me of the way so many Jedi went down under Order 66. Still, I had my boss pistol in my lower right hand and, with it's high-powered discharge and long range Mandalorian barrel, was shooting everything that was too far away for the sabers. Any second the sniper would fire, hit me in the neck, and I would take enough damage to die. I had Shield just behind me also blasting away and flashing up shields whenever we took fire, but he didn't know about the sniper. Still, I took a few hits, but with my armor and Changed physique, it hurt, but was irrelevant. I was aware that I was killing an Imperial trooper between every 1.2 and 1.3 seconds, it wasn't fast enough. In seconds the sniper would fire. Behind me an elite platoon of our militia, comprised of half biologicals, mostly human and half droid, mostly HX battle droids, all well-armed and well trained blasted away as well. Twenty-four other platoons were blasting in from around the perimeter in a concert of fire.

The Storm Troopers fought bravely, just before they were overwhelmed, the sniper fired.

My back-left blade was behind my neck. Foolish to think a fancy techno scope would be better than the Force. The sniper's shot reflected right back to her, through her scope and took off her head.

Resistance began to fade, and I noticed the GR-75s were just coming in. Timing would be critical on this mission. Even if there wasn't a fleet of Star Destroyers behind the next moon, some would be on their way. We tried to jam communications, but it was never perfect. We had to assume a distress call had gotten out and trouble was coming.

No, I didn't love the GR-75s, but they were cheap and could be bought right now. I could get something better from CEC, but that would be noticed by the Imperials and would take weeks or months to deliver.

We knew there were only a few hundred Imperial personnel present. In addition, they were configured for guard duty, not repulsing a large-scale assault. Our plan had used an entire battalion to make sure we flooded their resistance and took control quickly.

The GR-75s landed and we started moving people onto transports.

I found the main command and control center. The Major in charge was hiding under his desk. I shot him and let him to die there. I took his identi-stick and went to work. More valuable intel. More areas of the Imperial network exposed to my scrutiny.

I sent a signal. My platoon would return to their landing ship and leave. Shield and I would fly up and be picked up on Revenge. Shield would have no trouble carrying the containers I wanted.

In the end, Revenge was the last ship out. The first enemy Star Destroyer was just warping in. Too late for the Empire because we were away to my next task.

Our fleetlet had been completed.

Beta had come on line and she had been named Mygeeto. She had been modified much like Geonosis, but instead of as a landing ship, she had two carrier bays replacing her big deck guns. She had capacity for two squadrons of X-Wings, 48 craft in all. In addition, she would carry a handful of other craft like six UT-60Ds as COD craft. Her wing capacity was roughly the same as an Imperial light carrier, but she was much more rugged and had much better defensive weaponry.

The big step was Alpha. She was christened Exxelon. She had three, brand new, much larger and higher output, engines. Since Exxelon started in the worst shape, she had been almost completely stripped, gutted and rebuilt with large amounts of the improved Stentor frame, twenty percent more than stock, and the improved rigidity and resiliency of the Stentor meant she had 240% of the normal rigidity for 60% of mass. Instead of armor patches, she got large new Scoeti armor sections. Since much of her hull needed replacement, the hull wasn't patched, but with whole new sections of Scoeti armor, which further enhanced her structural rigidity. For her main energizer, she got a Toehiro. She also got a secondary combat energizer from the Foreaufai folks. Otherwise she got top of the line Corellian components including an upgrade on gravitic plate.

Exxelon's big improvement was that her big guns had been replaced with two turrets, three cannons each, of 200 mm cannon. Each cannon had three reservoirs available meaning she could fire three times in combat with each gun. She would also have her secondary generator available to try and start dumping in new energy immediately. That big high-output Foreaufai generator meant she could recharge a gun in minutes, not hours.

Things were tightening in Corellia-space for the export of a variety of weapons and military technologies. I induced my big gun manufacturer, Mersey and Solo, to move from Corellia-space to the Sultoon platform where they would get their own dedicated platform, attached to the main platform. They would also get a deal on raw materials from the main platform. They produced a lot of custom gun designs for different unusual situations and patrons. They had never produced guns this big for anyone else and I was now their biggest customer by a substantial amount. They had been getting pinched because the Empire had no use for their products and had forbidden their sale to anyone else, which meant they could either flee or go out of business. I gave them an excellent option for fleeing and they and their families fled. Their families now lived on Elysia. The workers of Mersey and Solo commuted from their comfortable habs on their own dedicated platform to their comfortable homes on Elysia.

Authors Note: As I edit this section, The Solo Star Wars movie has just come out. I am keeping the Solo name for my Cannon manufacturer since it will be my conceit that Solo is, essentially, the Corellian equivalent of "Doe or Smith." It's possible that more than one Corellian has adopted the Solo name at a time. I am generally pleased with the Solo Movie as I feel it hasn't really contradicted anything I have imagined for my own stories. Clearly the movie is focusing on the less savory parts of Corellia which I haven't.

My operation on Mustelidae was producing gravitic ore which was being refined on my Sultoon refinery platform. The finished gravene was of very high quality as I had good people and state-of-the-art equipment doing the refining. I then sold it to the people making the boy racer gravitic plate who loved it because it was so high quality. They were willing to pay above galactic average for the gravene. I was making money hand over fist on that deal, even as I bought back large amounts of finished gravitic plate from them.

Not that I needed the money. I had gone from owning interests in a few dozen firms to over a thousand. Many of them providing profits and dividends. Despite spending money like a drunken sailor to support various ongoing efforts, I was still bringing in more than I was spending and, as more of my assets went into investments, the rate of income was increasing. I still had deep wells of funds just sitting in low/no interest accounts needing to be invested. In the reduced growth environment of the Empire, finding places to invest one's Credits was becoming a problem for everyone. The wealthy aristocrats were particularly unhappy with this and it was actually pushing some to look at the Alliance.

Still, I soldiered on looking for new investment opportunities. I had gone as far as setting up an investment company I had named, "Investments Imperial."

In some places, that name got me special treatment as they assumed I was affiliated with the Empire in some way and they wasted their currying favor efforts. When I saw the name gained me antipathy, I made note of potential allies and explained I was not affiliated with the Empire in any way and the name pre-dated the change from Republic governance. That last bit wasn't true, but who did it hurt?

I still needed two more troop carrier ships. Since Imperial tightening of military exports was tightening, getting more Light Cruisers was going to be problematic. I had a sit down with my ship designers.

"We could use the GR-75s?" They asked.

"We need something more rugged." I replied. The GR-75 was known for being flimsy.

We settled on a program where we would use the plans for the Corellian Command Corvette, the largest variant of the nearly ubiquitous Corvette warship produced by CEC. The ships would be built from the ground up, but we could still freely purchase a wide variety of components from CEC, shortening construction substantially. However, since they were built from scratch by us, they could be loaded with Stentor frame and the hull would be all Scoeti armor. She would have a big improved energizer, the biggest Toehiro had ever built. Her engines would come from Corellia, but they were so large they would be custom built. The engines would be big ovals. Using the same amount of space as the eleven smaller engines would normally take, there would only be room on the ship for four of the larger engines. However, each one of my big ovals was as strong as six of the engines the standard Corvettes had now, meaning they could pump out nearly twice as much total thrust as a stock Corvette. By reducing the number of engines, I greatly reduced the amount of support equipment the engines needed lightening the ship substantially while hopefully also improving reliability. My fewer large engines also meant the ships were far more fuel efficient.

It goes without saying that the new ships would be heavily armed. The new wrinkle came after a discussion with Jojo and some of our current UT-60D pilots. Apparently, it was easier and faster for them to land on Mygeeto than Geonosis. So, the new ships would be designed as multi-role. They would have landing bays like a carrier rather than docking points. They would primarily be used as landing ships, but also could be pressed into service as carriers. Eventually, if we had enough fighters, we might build another ship as a fighter carrier.

I'd had to have a sit down with my two firms that produced shields. I couldn't buy shields from Corellia anymore due to Imperial restrictions.

The first was a firm named Zerpen Industries. They had been among the hero defenders of Salient. Salient was among the first systems to refuse to knuckle under to Imperial pressure and had been willing to fight, despite their almost certain defeat. Zerpen's main office and production facility had been on the Epiphany moon in the Salient system. The Imperials had smashed the place out of existence, but Zerpen had saved their most important seed corn asset, their people.

Zerpen was looking to get back into operation deeper in the Corporate Sector. They would need capital. Zerpen could produce high quality spacecraft on the order of CEC. Most importantly, they could build military grade shield systems.

I purchased one percent of Zerpen Industries with an understanding that I would be able to buy products from them in the future at cost. Zerpen got the Credits they would need to rebuild and remain a thorn in the Empire's side. It didn't hurt that Zerpen would specifically put a harpoon in the Techno-Union's side. It was also good that Zerpen would be dealing with, and strengthening, many other Corporate Sector firms and governments, which would bolster resolve in the region to continue to defy the Empire. That many of those firms put harpoons in the Techno Union as well? It was just good business.

I also spoke with the Plan-Tu, the folks who made the shields for Revenge. Plan-Tu's shields could provide twice the performance of Corellian/Imperial military grade, taking up approximately the same mass, volume and energy requirements. The problem was they were expensive, required exotic power converters and were not designed to run with Corellian style ship's brains.

As a major shareholder and client, I prevailed on them, for a further investment and a large order, that they would fix the connection and software issues which dramatically reduced costs. Price would still be an issue, the processes and materials they used were simply more expensive.

Even though Plan-Tu was more expensive, they were ready first. This meant my new Corvette based carriers would have Plan-Tu shields. The standard Corellian Corvette had a single commercial grade shield. Mine would have four Plan-Tu shields.

The Lola Sayu and then six months later the Ryloth came online. We had another under construction.

For Ryloth, we had Cham and Hera Syndulla come to Dandoran and they attended her dedication. Cham gave a speech to the crew where he regaled us with a telling of his great victory during the Clone Wars where they had charged across a plasma bridge, "just in time to capture that evil Separatist snake, Wat Tambor."

Newly promoted to Colonel Bayonet spoke, "We honor the people of Ryloth and their heroic struggles, in the past and present, with this ship. The victory at Ryloth during the Clone wars was an example of how an alliance between honorable citizens, the Jedi and Republic troops could defeat the apparently insurmountable and limitlessly cruel Separatist forces. Those victories should give us faith that a new alliance today between good people, the spirit of the Jedi and their allies can drive off even the Empire."

Everyone clapped. The speech was well received.

Which brings up rank, which is something we needed to clarify.

Unlike many militaries where there are at least two classes, like enlisted and officers, our military would have no such separation. The classes were an unfortunate relic of the aristocratic social orders that still afflicted much of the galaxy. We would retain some separation of chain of command between fleet and ground forces.

For our ground forces we had squads of 5 R1s, or Privates. One of the squad members would be an R2 Corporal or R3 Sergeant. Four squads would become a platoon led by an R4 Lieutenant. The R4 Lieutenant would generally have an assistant R2 or R3. Five platoons would become a company led by an R5 Captain, who would have a few R2s to R4s on staff. Five companies became a battalion led by an R6 Major, who would also have a few R2s to R5s on staff. Five battalions would be led by an R7 Colonel, or Colonel Bayonet. Hence the promotion.

While not an exact match, the structure was based on Republic and Corellian models.

The structure would continue to work for two more battalions. If we got to three more Battalions, it might actually make sense to have an R8 General. I would notice, with other parts of the resistance, they would get pretty loose with that General title. They would learn our Colonel held more authority than most of their Generals.

At the risk of being boring, the Fleet side worked a little a differently. It started with needing officers. We had good engineering crews from Fresia and general crew from Sultoon. However, just as it was a problem for the DZs and the CPF, senior officers were a problem for the Harp Fleet.

I thought about raiding my pirates. I now had 17 pirate ships out roaming the galaxy twisting the Trade Federation into knots.

I spoke with Captain Mel, "Is there any way I could get you to consider leaving the Tranquility and taking command of one of our fleet ships?"

Captain Mel gave me his favorite enigmatic smile and replied, "Nope."

"Just checking." I said.

The solution, I found, was lying before me in the Hope Shipping fleet. We had just set the fiftieth, Long Hope, the first IXp7, into the fleet. The people over at CEC who ran the IX division loved us. Of course, one must remember, that if we were buying an IXp7, that meant the IXp11s had been out for some time. This was also against the thousands of ships, many bigger, owned or leased and run by the Trade Federation. One could not rule the galaxy in a day.

However, those Hope ships each had two crews. Captain Kory who was still running the fleet, now with a bigger staff, was still mostly hiring former Corellian Guard Fleet and Security Fleet. One could think of the Guard Fleet as a military organization there to convince other militaries not to attack Corellia. The Security Fleet was more like police and fire/rescue.

I raided my Hope fleet. I started big, I asked Captain Spruance of Hope Ship #18 Life Hope to join me for dinner. His tug brought him down to the house in the hills south east of town.

"Welcome." I greeted him at the door.

I brought him in. We had a nice dinner. We made small talk. Captain Spruance was a genial and pleasant guest.

I knew he had been considered one of the best Captains in the Corellian Guard Fleet. He had been promoted to command of one of the few Proficient Class cruisers the CGF had. He had won the annual fleet games, twice, outmaneuvering and defeating his fellow captains in the best simulation the CGF could make of actual combat. Captain Spruance had been expected to rise to Chief Admiral of the Fleet. Then the Empire came. He took early retirement and joined Hope Shipping.

We retired to the outside deck for some spice sticks and brandy.

"Are you going to tell me why you invited me here yet? Or is it that you just like my company?" Captain Spruance asked when we sat down with drinks and smokes to admire the view of the rapidly building town.

"Couldn't your company be enough?" I asked coyly in return.

"Probably, but I suspect there is more to your agenda." He replied.

"You are the perceptive strategist I've been told." I said with smile.

"Ah, so that's why you've called me down here." He said.

"Yes. To recruit you." I replied.

"I'm not sure I want to do more than what I'm doing right now. Being the Captain of a Hope ship is a pretty cushy, well paid billet." He replied.

"I won't force you to do anything you don't want. You can remain Captain of Life Hope for as long as you like. However, you didn't join the Guard Fleet to make grain deliveries. You did it to defend Corellia. Corellia is under attack right now. Any moment, several thousand of your fellow Corellians could be rounded up and shipped off to slave torture until dead. Again. In fact, moment by moment, in the middle of the night, doors are being knocked on and that means someone won't be there tomorrow. Maybe they spoke out. Maybe they published a post on a HoloNet. Maybe they joked a little too loud in a bar. Whatever their crime, I promise, you'll never see them again." I put the screws to him.

"If I wanted to fight, I could join the CPF." He replied uneasily.

"You could, if you wanted to be a figurehead. Which is why I suspect you haven't. Join the Harp Fleet and you'll see action. Probably more than you'd like. But you'll be taking real steps to try and bring this galaxy back. Some of your CPF comrades have been moving over to the Harp Fleet for that reason. The Harp Fleet just rescued over 5000 Corellians. That's real."

The Harp Fleet had, in fact, been getting some recruits from the CPF, but I was trying to minimize it, both to avoid antagonizing Admiral Pagot and because the CPF had a real role as trainers. It was also important that the CPF continue to be a real deterrent force.

"Okay. You got me." He replied.

"Welcome aboard Commodore." I replied.

What?" he replied surprised.

Commodore Spruance would command Exxelon. He would also help me pick out other senior officers from Hope Fleet to recruit. We found Captains to run Mygeeto, Geonosis, Lola Sayu and Ryloth. We also found senior officers for all ships. Eventually, I wanted all crews to mix and new officers to emerge organically. We would make do with this arrangement for now.

Ranks worked in a similar way for Fleet as they did for ground, though titles were different. There were R1 Spacemen, R2 Senior Spacemen, R3 Chief Spacemen, R4 Lieutenants, R5 Commanders, R6 Captains and a single R7 Commodore. Presumably, if our fleet ever grew large enough, there would be an R8 Admiral. The difference was that in ground troops, rank was definitely tied to number of troops. In Fleet, rank was connected to responsibility, what kind of job were they doing. For example, the crewman who oversaw the ship's brain on Exxelon was an R5 Commander even though she only had a staff of four including herself. The Chief Engineer, an R4 Lieutenant, did have a staff of around 20, meaning his personnel balance was similar to ground troops. Sky was the R6 Captain of the Revenge and for purposes of interacting with the rest of the fleet, while the only nominal crew on that ship was me.

In fact, Sky became Tactical Officer for the Fleet as well. Commodore Spruance had remarkable judgment and strategic vision. Sky was much better at arranging vectors and positions. Part of the training we were doing as a fleet was to make sure we could collaborate and do the hand offs in authority smoothly. The CPF and the DZ fleet were happy to provide opposition forces for our training.

I had a number of conferences with Commodore Spruance.

"Will Captain Sky be joining us today?" He asked.

"Captain Sky is always present through me. She sees what I see, hears what I hear. I know that's a bit unusual, but I have to ask your indulgence."

"I suppose that's fine. I've seen a lot of different life forms and situations in this galaxy. This is hardly the strangest." The Commodore accepted.

"I appreciate it. If you wish to say something to Captain Sky, just say it to me. If she has a question or a comment, I'll convey it." I further explained.

We spent this conference discussing different options. We now had a fleet. The Commodore was in charge of the ships. Sky was there to help him select the best vectors and tactics. I had assembled a huge military force. The fleet was like a big gun. My job was to figure out how to use this big gun. My fleet was probably one of the most capable in the galaxy for it's size. Certainly, it was one of the strongest space forces existant in direct opposition to the Empire. But we wouldn't be storming Coruscant tomorrow. A small fleet of Star Destroyers could still clean our clocks.

We were discussing various options of how to use our force when, after I had suggested we might be able to invade an Imperial held system, Commodore Spruance replied, "You have to be careful about that. The fleet in defense always has the advantage."

"They do?" I replied surprised. I just assumed the attacking fleet would have the advantage as they would always have the advantage of surprise.

Captain Spruance then began a speech that sounded a bit canned, like he was treating me as a raw cadet. Which, essentially, he was.

"Actually yes. A fleet like the CGF will have scouted and mapped every cubic centimeter of her home system. The defending fleet will know where every pebble, every bit of gravity, the magnetic fields and every whiff of radiation is. They will then be able to use that knowledge to prepare a defense and either force or trick an invading force into bad positions and situations.

"Secondly, the defending fleet will be sitting on it's sources of supply and maintenance. The invading fleet will be at the wrong end of a supply line that is interstellar distances long.

"Thirdly, the defending fleet will be able to build static defenses. All sorts of cannon, sensors and other equipment can be pre-positioned on terrestrial locations. Not to mention heavily armored and shielded. An asteroid with a landing field is like a carrier that can never be destroyed."

I was thinking of the guns I had placed on the Rock and the New Temple. I was also thinking of Jojo's stories about Reflex Point.

Spruance continued, "I could go on, but I'll also point out that a fleet on defense need not equip ships with, large, heavy, expensive hyper drives. Maybe those X-Wings have an advantage over TIE fighters, mostly, I suspect, because of the built-in shields, but what if you could get an X-Wing without that bulky hyper drive? It would have an advantage in combat as well as being far less expensive, allowing the purchase of more craft. There are those that think placing a hyper drive on a snub fighter is as stupid as, say, equipping a fighter with a ground defense cannon. Okay maybe not that stupid."

We talked some more. We made plans. The best ideas we had were to continue to undermine Imperial rule. We could continue to nibble away at the Empire by both stealing shipments as my pirates, or perhaps I should say privateers, were doing and the way my Hope ships undermined unofficial Imperial blockades. The main fleet could be used as a deterrent force to keep ever larger areas out from under direct Imperial rule.

While I'm sure the Hutt who ruled Dandoran would be happy to hurl me into an industrial shredder at his earliest convenience, I suspect that he was happy that the possible presence of a large fleet of ships kept the Imperials out of his system and his sovereignty. The fact that I didn't further challenge his sovereignty while I had massively upgraded the infrastructure available in-system, which I'm sure was enriching the Hutt greatly, might even have resulted in a slight softening of his opinion towards me. Likely not, but it was nice to think it might.

The Hutt and I didn't talk. We did communicate. Every few months, when something he was doing annoyed me enough, I'd send him a note telling him to quit it. So far, he always did. He never replied otherwise.

Another project I was working on with my ship designers and Jotun was a new class of ship I called a "Battleship." It would take the logical steps to be a dedicated platform for turrets of 500 mm cannon. It would be engines, energizers, frame, guns and armor. We were currently working on the design. We wanted to make sure we could simultaneously point the maximum number of guns at the same target. It was a complicated three-dimensional puzzle.

That was one of the reasons we had gone with the light cruisers and corvettes. They were solid designs. They had been built in large numbers for decades. Whatever problems they had, were known and likely had been ironed out. We could just buy off the shelf parts for many of their systems making them cheaper and faster to assemble. When we used our own replacement systems, specifications and requirements were well known. I had finally caught up to Corbeen in this one small area. Why building Revenge had been such a pain. Building this battleship would be a Revenge-sized pain times ten. I think Jotun was looking forward to it.

While I had been building a lot of ball and HX droids. I decided we needed some more Vultures. Of course, there was no way we would find any more of them just lying about, particularly the most desirable and rare Epsilons. However, we had the plans and a lot of experience keeping and maintaining the ones we had.

So, I acquired some more fabbing equipment and droids. We carved out some more space at the Temple, there was still endless volume available, and got to work.

One problem we ran into was that we couldn't give the new Vultures more than two torpedoes each. Then we ran the problem by Cson and his group.

Cson heard our problem and took one look at the schematics. Then he looked at me and said, "Why not use the Hyena design if we're building from the ground up?"

I could have smacked myself in the head it was so obvious. It made perfect sense. Using the Hyena layout gave the craft an extra nacelle to hold a magazine of torpedoes. It was so obvious.

Cson and his people took two weeks and did a full redesign. We really didn't need the new Eta to be able to transform into ground walking droids. That capability was removed allowing for a number of improvements on earlier design. More armor, more fuel, more frame, bigger energizer and guns were all added.

We would build a new generation of the Vulture/Hyena, dubbed Eta, and we would build them Harp-style. The Eta Vultures would have Binar brains. Their hides would be made by Scoeti, their shields would be Plan-Tu and their bones would be Stentor. Their guns would be made by BlasTech on Dandoran. Blaster technology had moved on since Epsilon substantially so that would be a big improvement. The Etas would also have Foreaufai energizers and the Boy Racer gravitics. It goes without saying what kind of paint job they would get.

It also goes without saying the Etas would have much better torpedoes, considering the rather cheap junk the CIS had used. I had used up most of my stockpile of cheap junk torpedoes and was now buying parts and assembling them at the New Temple. My cheapest build torpedo was a big improvement. 

The Etas attached to Revenge and Bearer would have Silver Bullets.

Once again, the Etas would have a very high per unit cost. They probably wouldn't be a very competitive galactic product. They were good for me though. Our current strategic estimates considered one of our Epsilons a one-to-one match with a TIE. Certainly, it would depend enormously on how good a pilot the TIE had. One thing we were becoming aware of was how uneven Imperial forces were. There were some that were very good, but also many that were poorly trained or motivated.

We expected the Etas to be almost as good as X-Wings with well-trained pilots. The Etas had followed my Commodore's advice and did not have hyper drives. They were short range fighters.

I wanted more Vultures because we now had one dedicated landing ship and three light carrier/landing ships. We had four squadrons of X-Wings. On a mission to a place like Solo-Ki we brought two light carrier/landing ships, each with a battalion and a squadron of X-Wings. We couldn't bring more troops because we had a lot of obligations and more importantly, more troops weren't needed. We also would have needed more ships.

Obviously, our main location was Korpluck Town on Dandoran. The Rock was also in system and while it was mainly run by the CPF, it was there. We also had a large shipyard in Dandoran space. We also had the new Temple and the Stash. Both of which needed to be protected. We had a community and small shipyard on Elysia. We had the platform in Sultoon space and the mining colony on Mustelidae. All of those locations needed to have ships and troops. We never had less than a company of troops on Mustelidae. Each location had unique security concerns, every so often a few hundred Mustelidae would get excited and try to overrun our settlement, they needed to be dealt with gently, but firmly. If we didn't garrison our assets, they might just get knocked over by some low grade, but real pirates.

We also had other obligations.

The Die Tzes had gone home. With their ships maintenanced and upgraded. Their crews retrained. Their infantry equipped and trained as well. They were ready. Also, their people had the time they needed to convalesce and become strong again. They were ready. They picked up, and, with help, went home. It was scary. The Imperials could notice and attack. It could be another Emberlene very easily. At the same time, the Empire still seemed cowed by their experience on Salient. As long as Die Tze didn't seem to be a direct threat, we deemed it likely that Imperial strategists would ignore them.

Which brought up Emberlene. We kept a battalion on troops on Emberlene at all times. That battalion had a specific mission, support reconstruction.

Once the Imperials had completed planetary bombardment, they had pulled out.

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	2. Chapter 2

**Legend of the Harp**

 **Episode III: The Crucible**

 **Chapter 2: Dealing the Deck**

*Unknown Sciuridae, on a branch, Castanea*

The Sciuridae clung hard to the thick branch of the tall tree as the rain fell, pressing her body to the bark for all she was worth. She couldn't see the bottom of the tree or the crown from her perch near the trunk. She had fled to Castanea when the Order fell. Once, she had been a Jedi.

Many thought Sciuridae couldn't be Jedi. Despite the Sciuridae being part of the Republic for almost a thousand years, she had been the first brought to the Temple to receive training. A Jedi needed to be able to control her fear. It was believed that Sciuridae were biologically incapable of controlling their fear. She was intensely aware that she might be proving those critics right. She could remember how once she had passed the Tests of Spirit and Combat, but now she was so afraid, paralyzed by her fear.

She had chosen Castanea because she had traveled here once on behalf of the Order and it had reminded her so much of her homeworld. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. It was only after she had gotten to Castanea that she realized that if the Imperials reviewed the records, they would realize she had been here before. That might be enough for them to come look.

She had managed to survive Order 66 and steal a ship. The only ship she could get had been in poor condition and had crash landed on Castanea. The crash took most of her survival supplies, while also insuring the ship became indelible evidence that someone had recently come here. She still had her saber, but it's power was long depleted. Keeping it now seemed more foolish sentimentality than practicality.

She had seen Imperial scouts on the planet. If they caught her, it would be Mustafar, worse than the worst she could imagine, and she was so afraid.

If she could only master her fear, perhaps she could use her training and ambush some of the Imperials. Steal some supplies and maybe a ship. But she couldn't. She was a Sciuridae. Fear was hardwired into her brain. She could remember controlling her fear for the Test of Spirit, but now she couldn't. She could only hide, pathetically, and cling ever tighter to the branch as the cold rain came down. The rain that continued to drench her wretchedly cold body and had soaked her fur to the bone.

*Jedi Knight Jors Zaemon, Dandoran*

Furry was up on Exxelon sorting things out with his new Commodore. Thank the Force I had managed to beg off joining them for another, extended, fleet tactics conference. As a ground pounder during the Clone Wars, I knew next to nothing about space war fleet tactics and had little to offer. What I did know was that despite the best laid plans, spaceship battles always seemed to devolve into masses of ships shooting at each other in empty space. Planning seemed a bit pointless. I could give them a good plan, try to shoot first and most often. Also, don't miss. I suppose if this revolt needed me to become an expert on fleet tactics, I would, but it didn't seem necessary right now and my time was better spent on other efforts.

I had been to a few of Furry's fleet tactics conferences which were dull enough to count as torture under the Alderaan Conventions. Of course, as a responsible Jedi and leader of this enterprise, I had to sit through the boring, tedious back and forth and look interested, for hours! Never has my time Standing Gate seemed like better preparation! I still remember one conference with Admiral Pagot and the CPF boys. Furry had to start that one off with a longwinded speech. After the speech, the thing merely took forever. I expect the Captains all wanted to look good on a first meeting and in front of the Jedi. Then, just as they were finally getting done, they politely asked for our opinion again. Rather than just let all us poor tired people go, Furry has to give them another long winded speech and make them do it all again the next week. Luckily, I was sitting through most of this, unlike the Captains, but my back was ready to crack. I don't know what it is about those ships, but the next comfortable chair I find on a warship will be the first. I'm not a very tall or heavy person, but those seats are always small, hard and they must put R&D into figuring out how to make them unergonomic. Any fleet tactics meeting I could avoid was a good meeting. I could always read one of the summaries Furry always seemed determined to write and then wouldn't understand if I didn't find time to read.

I was down on Dandoran, Korpluck Town in particular, sorting things out here. Luckily, I had slotted Bayo into the Colonel role, keeping me from getting stuck with it. I know it sounds lazy, but Bayo was ready for the job and it reflected just a little justice for those poor, under-appreciated clones that Bayo got the recognition he deserved. Also, Bayo had wanted the job and while he always looked harried and overworked, it didn't take my Jedi senses to tell he was loving every minute of it. It goes without saying he was more than qualified.

I still had a mountain of tasks on my plate, more than I could ever get to, but I was trying to whittle them down. I was in charge of general security for this whole shindig and constantly dealing with questions from our far-flung assets as well as Korpluck Town itself. I know, Korpluck Town might seem pretty solid. We have a town security force, town militia and generally some of our own Harp Militia present. Furry has also spared very little expense getting us automated defenses in depth. Still, I had found evidence that someone had pierced our defenses and made his way to a good shooting location over our villa in the south east hills and stayed there for some time.

We'd also had the incident with Master Burana. His intrusion during the slave rescue had cost lives and almost compromised the mission. Master Burana couldn't have done that without excellent intelligence and where he had gotten it was still a mystery.

Imperial Intelligence has an endless roster of top people and training facilities. Right now, we had me and that's it. I was intensely aware of my own limitations. Yes, I was a Jedi Knight Temple Guard, but I was still painfully junior. If I had made it through another decade or so of Standing Gate and other similarly useful tasks, I might have been brought into the real security work. Then I would have been trained by seasoned Jedi Knights in real security tactics for the modern age. If we only had one of those guys instead of me, we'd all be a lot safer. I knew most of those experienced guys had died leading troops in the Clone Wars and the few that had survived had been summarily executed by their own commands. All that remained in the Temple would have died there defending her. So, all we had left was me. May the Force be with us.

I was investigating the intrusion and getting nowhere. I was also trying to come up with a better defensive plan and having not much more success.

Another task that was on my plate was trying to track down other Jedi. If we could find another Jedi and bring them in, not only would they be safer, but they would be a massive multiplier to our own capabilities. Imagine if we could find one of the senior Temple Guards, how much might she do to improve our position?

You'd think that with all surviving Jedi ordered to ground, hiding and most dead, there would be no hints of Jedi sightings. Particularly with the Empire working night and day to hunt down any survivors. You would be wrong. In fact, there is a never-ending stream of reported sightings. It makes sense. The Jedi were the defenders of peace and justice in the galaxy for a thousand generations. When people were in trouble and under stress, they wanted to believe there was a Jedi nearby. With the Empire, there was a lot of trouble and stress.

Furry's time in Intelligence had taught him how to sift through the many sightings and hints. Furry would assign the incidents different priorities depending on likelihoods and the odds we could get to the Jedi before the Empire or the trail had gone cold.

We actually sat down for breakfast here at the villa to review the most recent batch. The big surprise was that there was a major lead on a Jedi Master.

"So we have clear evidence," I began, "that Master Unduli is being held at Stygeon Prime. Not only do we have the recent pronouncement by Gall Trayvis but supporting evidence as well. I could take Fio and a team and bust her out. How hard could it be? The Spire is just one of the most secure prisons in the galaxy. I'm sure we can do it." I offered.

Furry replied, "She was a true Master and an incredible leader during the Clone Wars. If we could rescue her, that would be a major achievement. If we could convince her to join us, that could be a major change in this conflict."

We had sat at the table on the roof balcony. I had eaten breakfast and Furry had pretended to eat. He put the reports, which represented the best intelligence we currently had on Jedi survivors, before me and we had reviewed them. Most were very low probability. That Master Unduli might still be alive was clearly pick of the litter and I was eager to be off. If a Jedi was in distress, being held in a place like the Spire, I was ready to do whatever it took to get her out.

"There is one other report that seems to bear some review," Furry began somewhat tentatively. "Jedi Knight Keelis Chatterjee may be on Castanea. The Imperials do seem to be sniffing around there."

"I saw that, but the odds she's there versus the odds we could get Master Unduli, it just doesn't make sense?" I questioned confused.

We really only had time to make a move on one or the other. Unduli seemed like the much better lead, by a long shot.

"I know. It may only be sentiment. One's insight into the future is always so clouded with emotion. Jedi Knight Chatterjee, or Keely as we called her, was one of my room mates. Did you know?" Furry asked.

In theory, the entire Order is supposed to be one's family and one is supposed to be equally loyal to all. In practice, we had all started training with three roommates whom we had grown up with and been closer to than anyone else.

Of my own three roommates, I knew one had been KIA during the Clone Wars, one had been murdered by his troops during Order 66 and the last had died on a deep space exploration mission. For a time, we had held out hope for her survival, but a rescue ship had confirmed her death. What I wouldn't give now for even one to still be alive.

Considering the state of the Order, that Furry had even one roommate left, that Androccoles on Respublica, was pretty good. Though I could still understand his worrying if a roommate might be out there, no matter how low the likelihood.

"No, I didn't. I understand." I replied, knowing how, even if Furry couldn't admit it, he would be desperate to help a roommate. Furry would know, objectively, Unduli was the way to go, but his heart would be screaming to help Chatterjee. So, on the fly, I came up with, "Hey, I have an idea. Fio is getting to a point where she's ready to take on some independent responsibility. Why don't I put together a team, take Bearer and see about Master Unduli? At the same time, we can put together a second team and send Fio with them in one of those U-Wings. She can do a little looking around. If it's something easy, she can get it done. If it's something hard, she can call for help. I'm sure you could get there quick in Revenge if you had to and you also have all those pirates." I suggested.

I liked the idea more than was good for a Jedi because it meant I had an excuse to keep Fio from the danger of a mission like storming Stygeon Prime. I would be keeping Fio safe on a green milk run to Castanea. As Fio's Mentor, I should have wanted to expose her to danger, not protect her from it. I was acting on emotions that were more paternal than mentorly. Still, if Furry agreed?

"That seems like a good suggestion. Has she been able to put together her lightsaber yet?" Furry replied gratefully.

"No. Not yet. She can handle two objects fairly well, but the third is awkward. Few more months and she should be there." I explained trying not to sound defensive.

"Then I think we should make sure she understands this mission is more scouting and less acting. If she ran across some more of the Inquisitors you told me about, it could be a problem." Furry replied.

"Agreed."

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Please help. Thank-you.


	3. Chapter 3

**Legend of the Harp**

 **Episode II: The Tempest**

 **Chapter 3: Must Be Looking For Something**

***Jedi Knight Furin Kazan, aboard Revenge, near New Temple, System Undisclosed ***

While I'm sure everyone else was going to a well-earned night's sleep. There was no rest for the wicked and Sky took us to the New Temple.

As I debarked I was greeted by Shield.

"I am deeply saddened by the loss of Believer." Shield began.

"I know, but it wasn't you're fault. Ti determined that clearly." I answered.

"I am grateful to Ti." Shield said.

"As am I. How go the Droids?" I replied.

"We had 135 working droids at Die Tze. 49 were rendered inoperative or damaged. With parts available, we expect 32 more BXs can be brought online. Of the 49 rendered inoperative or damaged on Die Tze, it is not yet clear how many can be brought back to function, priority was given to the 32. Currently we have 88 BXs available, the current batch of 32 should be available in the next few weeks after which we will do a new survey on all remaining parts." Shield reported.

"How are we on Destroyers?" I asked. I knew they had taken a hit on Die Tze.

"13 still in function. A survey is scheduled after the BX survey." Shield reported.

I stayed at the New Temple rather than return to Dandoran. I was keeping tabs on the resettlement and other issues the Die Tzes had brought but could do little directly. I was also trying to figure out what we would do for a ship design staff. I could probably go out and recruit either inexperienced or mediocre help immediately. I was picky though. I wanted exceptional and I wanted politically reliable. It was slim pickings. I also looked into my droid army.

We brought in several new pieces of equipment that would help with faster fabbing and two new workshop droids that would help speed the work.

We had the 118 BXs back fairly quickly. Of the 49, only 11 more would ever come back, meaning we would top out 129 when complete. I started to dig deeper. We had a lot of spare parts and could fab many of the simpler parts. However, the droid brain and main motivator units were beyond our fabbing skill, which was not a surprise, they were parts that required large, heavily staffed industrial facilities.

The original manufacturer, Baktoid, was not available to provide replacement parts and the parts were hotly sought by collectors and others who likely had the same general idea I did, a personal army.

Some more research, and I found another producer of droid brains who produced some models that could be used in place of the Baktoid originals. Their "D Series" brains came in three flavors. A D-6100 could animate and operate the BX's form but would be slower and dumber. The more expensive D-6300 would be roughly equivalent, but pricey. The D-6500 was considered a serious upgrade. I ordered 100 of the D-6500s.

Another manufacturer made a compatible main motivator unit. There wasn't much choice and it seemed like they were a slight downgrade, so I ordered 100 of them as well.

Sky and I went and fetched the parts back.

"Work the Destroyers. Then use these brains to bring as many BXs back as possible. Then use the motivators. I want 220 up and running. Keep the other parts in inventory." I ordered Shield.

I then had some time on my hands while various processes worked themselves out and I still had droids on my brain.

"Shield, we will be designing new combat droids." I announced.

Building a new starship from scratch, especially with varied parts, was a major undertaking. Building a new droid? Children did that. If we were trying to build something in the millions, be competitive in the marketplace, be able to source very specific parts, maybe not. Put together a custom batch? Very doable.

I had been doing research on droid parts for the BX droids. As I expected, my Binar friends had droid brains in the right size that were ever so smart. Smart didn't mean so much coming up with new scientific discoveries as much as it meant being able to operate all functions of the droid and move quickly. So, I ordered one.

I had done and did some more research on main motivators. There were half-a-dozen that seemed good. I ordered all of them.

We did some design work, basically copying the BX, though ours would be a little taller and beefier.

The motivators came. We tested and found that we really liked the unit from IA Robotics. I also bought one percent of the company and guess what considerations I got?

We built the rest of the unit on site with fabbed up parts. When we were done I noticed that Shield had included a second pair of arms and the hands were similar to mine. At first, I was going to say no, then I kind of liked the idea of a droid in my own image.

When The HX-Prototype, or Boxie, was completed, I brought him to Jojo.

"What is it?" Jojo asked.

"A new kind of battle droid we may get to go with our BXs," I explained.

"What do you want me to do with him?" Jojo asked.

"Put him through basic with the next class. Let me know how he does." I answered.

"Will do." Jojo answered.

While we were waiting, two of the Star Destroyers left Die Tze space. I had told Saw to wait at least a week after that, but when the week was over, it was game on. Things on Die Tze started blowing up. Midnight and Music started running missions. Generally, one would swoop in, harass and if possible, kill some TIE fighters, then blast out. This would get the attention of the Star Destroyer so the other could sneak in, dump supplies and newly trained troops, then fill up with sick, injured, refugees and new training candidates. Then race back to Dandoran.

We were hopelessly backlogged on building homes, but that team was running full speed and we were placing families by lottery.

With Boxie doing his thing, we looked at another droid option.

Jojo was getting annoyed at me for spending all my time at the New Temple while he held down the fort at Dandoran, but he seemed to have things well in hand and I was literally always available via commlink.

I found several armored chassis that used a gravitic system for propulsion rather than walk like Boxie. We ordered in a bunch and tested them out. Once again, the winner came from IA Robotics, that boded well for my investment.

We built up another prototype using another Binar brain. We fabbed up our own second prototype. It would be able to project a shield like the destroyers I aimed to replace. Unlike the destroyer, with flight, it would be able to handle any terrain with speed and agility. The body was basically ball shaped and about a meter across. It would have a sensor package in the middle in front, one large lens in the middle and a pair of smaller lenses beside it. It would also have two additional smaller sensor packages at 120 and 240 degrees. It would be armed with two high-speed, high power blaster cannons. The cannons ended up on the front, each side just below the waist. They would also have a tube-shaped slot in the upper right-hand side for a heavy weapon, like a rocket or heavy blaster. It had some other nice capabilities baked in and then Big Ball got sent to Jojo just as Boxie passed training with flying colors.

With Boxie's proof of concept, we ordered 1100 brains and motivator units. We also ordered a variety of parts, including joints, microphones, eyes, mouth speakers, among others from IA. We bought top quality. I figured it would work out well as purchased parts would save us fabbing time and IA seemed to be a good outfit, so their parts might actually be better than what we could fab. Like most humanoid shaped robots, the HX would have exterior plates which we would use for armor. We ordered 1100 sets of armor from my Scoeti. When the armor was received, each droid would get a lick of my favorite paint.

I also spoke with BlasTech. We would get a modified version of the A-280 for the HX. It would have uprated internals. It would also have a tap that would let it connect back to the droid. While the blaster would have a larger power drum, capable of firing 50 shots, rather than the normal 20 shot box-shaped power supply pack, it would also be able to draw on the droid's main power supply for extended operation. The tap would also allow a direct connection to the droid's targeting system, meaning it could be fired accurately from almost any position. BlasTech was only willing to do the run since I was buying 1100 of them.

When the parts were assembled on the landing deck of the Temple, I spoke with Shield. "Have my workshop get to work assembling these droids. When we have a batch of 100, send them to Dandoran and Jojo will run them through training. We'll keep the last hundred part sets as spares for rebuild after action in case we can't get more spares."

"Will do." Shield answered.

I had let Jojo know what was coming.

The "HX" would loosely be designed based on the BX. It would have a bigger head to hold the bigger brain. The motivator, which sat between the shoulders on the BX was a little larger on the HX and would be a little further down giving the HX a more barrel shaped torso. The face would be flat, like a very plain protocol droid's, without a snout. The HX would have a round pair of lighted eyes and a rectangular mesh slit for a mouth. It would have two ears roughly where a human would and a third in the back of the head which would let it triangulate sounds immediately, good luck to enemy snipers.

The HX's exterior would be made of armor pieces made by the same people who made Revenge's exterior. All armor pieces would be joined by pieces of the Zillo leather. The HX would then get a camouflage paint job of thick Zillo paint appropriate for Dandoran, so it would be full of browns, tans, greens and black. There would be a Harp logo stenciled in black on the upper left chest and right shoulder. The HX, despite having a hard-armored head, would wear the same visored helmet I was buying for the Militia.

Militia gear at this point was a heavy skintight smart fabric body suit so they would stay warm or cool mostly regardless of weather. They would also have an open-faced helmet, chest armor, forearm/hand armor and calf/leg armored boots from my armor supplier, each with a thick coat of Zillo paint in the camouflage pattern. They would have a light set of Dandoran appropriate cloth camouflage fatigues covers. The fatigue covers could be changed out quickly for other locales as needed. They would be armed with an A-280 rifle, also equipped with shock bayonet. After that, each trooper would have a variety of gear available that they could choose from. Almost all carried a pack and canteen.

I was taking some risk with the Zillo paint. If some fell into bad guy hands and they figured it out, it might make them even more powerful. However, to a casual observer, it would just look like paint. Actual testing showed the paint did improve the resiliency of the armor, but, as I explained to Fio, it wouldn't make one the fabled Beast. Part of the Beast's resiliency was that it was very large, so it could spread the insult over a vast area. Also, while the paint emulated the Beast's ability to disperse insult, it was not nearly as efficient. Lastly, the Beast could dump charge to ground very efficiently in a process we still didn't understand but reminded me of the way a Jedi controlled the energy in a Kyber crystal.

I found the idea of creating a kind of perfect armor that would only work for Jedi intriguing, but still far off. Regardless, it seemed like the paint would help, but not so much it would likely be noticed.

Every so often, Sky would drag me away and we would do a supply run for Die Tze. My second visit to Die Tze, things seemed to be going okay, but they were definitely not budging the Imperials much. Starvation seemed to be spreading in the civilian population.

Homes were, many weeks later, still being built as fast as possible in New Korpluck Town and still behind demand. Every ship seemed to come back full of wounded, sick and starving.

I broke down and had an apartment building built. The quarters were small efficiency apartments appropriate for single people with no family. The building was ten stories and had quarters for a hundred people. It took much less time than building houses. We pulled the first hundred single adults off the waiting list and assigned the other rooms as temp quarters. That eased the list considerably, but we got back to house building fast.

Big Ball did great in testing. Flight and huge blasters were a drain on the thing's energy reserves, so he couldn't linger. He was definitely an attack shock trooper, not a patient stalker or post stander. But for an ambush or a pitched battle? Quite the asset. We ordered 110 sets of parts. Once again, we leaned on IA, BlasTech and my favorite Armorer's.

My little workshop was working at a fever pitch. We had 200 BXs. Company A was original parts. Company B had the aftermarket. We had 15 Destroyers and they were now working full time on the HXs.

My third trip to Die Tze was worse. Saw and his surviving Partisans came out with a bunch of sick and wounded. The rank and file civilians were more and more desperate to get out, but it was getting more and more difficult to sneak in and out. The Imperial Admiral, one Admiral Scharn, wasn't a genius, but he wasn't a fool. He knew his rebels were moving in supplies from space. He was keeping up the patrols and he was using ready reaction forces to jump resupply ships. We hadn't lost any ships, but several had been torn up. Which was making it take that much longer to get the Die Tze ships moving.

I sat down with Saw as we pulled him out.

"What happened?" I asked and Saw knew I was debriefing him. I was asking why hadn't we won? Why was this falling apart?

"They out thought us. The Colonel Borgia they put in charge was smarter than we thought. At first, every time our troops met, the storm troopers would have their blasters set on stun. We thought that was funny. We thought that gave us an advantage. But then, they started taking prisoners. We weren't worried at first. We found out later, those prisoners were tortured. Frequently to death. When they were tortured, they gave up everything. Then the Imperials knew where our supplies were. Who was helping us. Where to find us. We tried to keep moving, but the Imperials got a step ahead of us and we couldn't get away." Saw explained.

"I see. We will have to develop countermeasures." I replied.

When I came back, Shield came to visit me.

"What can I do for you Shield?" I asked.

"I want this please." Shield answered.

Shield showed me a modified big ball body on a holopad.

The body had additional sensors. A pair of arms that looked suspiciously like HX arms had been attached to the upper body. Rather than having many dangling arms and tools as his current body did, Shield had found an interesting power rope option. The power rope was less than a centimeter in diameter and could be manipulated like a long tentacle. It would all spool up under a nice cover at the bottom of the ball-shaped body, so it wouldn't break the ball's round shape. The best thing about the long power rope is one could have a wide variety of attachments at the end. Shield had a neat tool box built into the cover with over a hundred attachments including a variety of data plugs, cutters, welders and manipulators. Far handier than what I had picked out for his current body.

"That's quite a design." I said.

"Yes. It would be a substantial upgrade." Shield said.

"My only concern is that I would want you to be clearly differentiated from the other Balls. Can we change your colors?" I asked.

"Yes, how about this?" Shield asked as he changed his appearance from camouflage to brass and brushed steel. I knew that was a prestige color pattern for droids during the latest season. I was pleased Shield was showing some vanity, it was very sentient. Shield's new body would also have a prominent gold Harp logo.

"Oh, that's very attractive. Can we cover the guns so when were in civilized locales it doesn't bother people?" I asked.

Shield did a quick manipulation and suddenly the guns had retracting covers.

"Very good. Move this to the top of the Droid shop's priority list. I want to be present when we transplant you into it."

"Thank-you Sir." Shield replied.

My fourth visit, we got the last of our Vultures and all remaining fighters on the ground. We tried to also shovel off as many civilians as we could. No one wanted to be left behind under hopeless Imperial rule.

I was deeply saddened. The Die Tze campaign had clearly been a loss. It was like Plynth all over again, only worse since the stakes were so much higher. I was sad we hadn't done more to inconvenience the Empire. I wasn't terribly worried about the civilians. We could keep running in missions and get everyone out who wanted to come. At this point there were only a few thousand more Die Tzes left.

We were still starving for a ship designer. If we had more and better ships, we could have done a better job resupplying the resistance. It might have made a difference.

Then we got a surprise. We mounted another mission to Die Tze to try to sneak in and evacuate civilians. When we came back, the planet was empty. There was no Star Destroyer, no TIEs, no storm troopers. There were also no civilians.

Admiral Elbi looked at me, "Where are our remaining civilians?"

I looked back. "I don't know, but we will find out."

The fact that nothing good could have happened to those civilians and we hadn't had the ships to get them out was like a red-hot metal poker in my gut.

At that point it seemed prudent to return to Dandoran. A lot of things had been floating along that needed to be addressed.

We had been using the lake as water source. Continued recreation on the lake and the proximity of an ever-larger community made that unwise. We found a small, very pure, mountain lake about 40 klicks north east of the town. We set up a pumping station, the necessary piping and a final purification station to make it the new water source. We built the final water purification plant in town and built it to be particularly thorough as we always had to be worried about Imperial skullduggery. We had reports the Imperials were not above using biological and chemical agents.

We also built a wastewater treatment plant 20 klicks south of town. I made sure we would compost most of the materials which would then be distributed to the local farms.

We also set up elections. There would be an elected mayor and a city council. In turn they would appoint a treasurer and clerk. It was time New Korpluck Town looked after some of her own affairs. I wanted them to pay for the school and at least part of the clinic. They also needed some other basic services. Partly, it was so that I shouldn't have to pay for everything. It was also that the people needed to have some control of their lives. It was one thing if this was a temporary bivouac, but more and more, it was likely to be an ongoing town. If we believed in the ideal of Democracy and the Republic, we needed to live it.

I waited patiently for a week to let the campaign go forward and have an election.

In the end, Dor Uker was elected Mayor. Others were elected to the Council representing the various communities in the town. Mayor Uker appointed Mr. Haney to be the Treasurer and a Corellian woman I didn't know to be Clerk after it was approved by the Council.

Then we collected up the Militia and we had speeches. A number of civilian townspeople also attended. First our new Mayor made an address. Then Admiral Pagot spoke and finally Prime Minister Kuijk spoke. They all gave vague and general speeches thanking everyone for their service. Then I made an address.

"Up till now, we have been coasting along without drawing clear lines. The situation has grown more complex and more confused. There are those among you who are simply residents of this Town. The Town will still need you as a Militia as this is a dangerous part of the galaxy you live in and the Town will need to be able to protect itself. There are those of you who are part of the Corellian Patriotic Fleet and will need to be prepared, should the Fleet so order, to take action. Some of you are members of the Die Tze Defense Forces in Exile and your government must also know what assets it has. Lastly, there are those who don't fit in any of those groups or who may fit in one of those groups, but fit better into a fourth group, a group that seeks to restore the Republic and may be prepared to fight the Empire when needed.

"We will start today to assign which group each of you belong to. While here in New Korpluck Town, you will all be part of the Town Militia. You will all answer to a clear chain of command and have the responsibility to protect the Town. However, depending on which group you identify yourself with, it will have consequences down the road. If you choose to be in the fourth group, you will likely be in a position to begin redress some of the wrongs that I know have brought many of you here. You will also likely be in far more danger than your fellow militia.

"Lastly, there have been some expensive and bloody lessons learned in recent action on Die Tze. Expect that to be reviewed in upcoming training. Some of the new directives may seem harsh, but we face a harsh foe and if we are weak, that weakness will be exploited."

That got people talking.

In the end we ended up with four basic militias. As I said in my speech, they would all fight together if we were attacked here in Korpluck Town with a clear chain of command. There was some confusion as to who fit in what militia. If it wasn't clear, they dropped to Korpluck Town Militia.

One gentleman was having a hard time and wanted to place a variety of conditions on service which varied depending on which militia he chose. No one else could deal with him so it got to me.

I looked at him and as he was about to pompously start giving his conditions, I stopped him by abruptly saying, "As of right now, you're assigned to Korpluck Town Militia. If at some point in the future you wish to transfer, you will be given reasonable opportunities to do so. You may not transfer while in training or in action. If you can't live with that and fulfill your responsibilities, being in the Militia is a requirement of residence, leave."

He shut up and accepted Town Militia.

Korpluck was the biggest group in the militia, followed by Corellia then Die Tze. There were about 2000 troops in all and 153 troopers signed up for my rebellion. Officially, they would be the Harp Militia. By the grace of the Force, much good I hoped it would do.

So now I had my rebellion. I doubted I could rally thousands of systems to my side and challenge the Empire as a certain former Jedi had. Yes, everyone here in Korpluck was opposed to the Empire to some degree and I had been letting the whole thing ferment. But now I had 153 trained militia people who had signed up specifically to fight and rebel.

The Militia would still likely be growing. We had a lot Die Tze people who needed to go through training and we were still getting dribbles and drabbles of people from Corellia.

While I'm sure the Empire didn't like us existing, I think they liked letting us sit here. We were an escape valve. If you hated the Empire and couldn't live under it, you could come to us. That way, those same people weren't speaking against the Empire or blowing things up back home. We were also a concentrator, eventually the Empire would want to come here and clean house. We had to be ready to fight or go when that happened. My sense was we wouldn't be ready to fight for some time. Even with everything we had, it was likely the Empire could roll over all of it with one Star Destroyer. A 3-ship flotilla, like they had at Die Tze, would squash us like a bug.

Through all this, I spent most of my time digging fruitlessly, trying to find the missing Die Tzes.

Then by the grace of the Force, our luck changed a bit. The famous ship designer, Eric Cson had been arrested on Respublica. He had a staff of similar geniuses, forward thinking ship designers. Cson had been known for speaking out against the Imperial Navy. Apparently, Cson had developed a proto-type warship, the Prince, which had gone on to be the basis of the Arquitens-Class light cruiser which all subsequent warships built by the Republic and the Empire had been based on. When the Prince had been completed and left space dock, there had been a reception on the Prince for high-level Republic dignitaries, including the Chancellor. Apparently, one of the ship's blaster cannons exploded during a demonstration and several VIPs had been killed and many others had been injured. The thing was, the cannon was forced on Cson by his Navy patron, it wasn't part of Cson's design. The patron, well tied in, wasn't going to be blamed, so they blamed Cson. In the end, Cson got kicked out without pay. It was not surprising that Cson was a bit bitter. Apparently, Cson had shot his mouth off at some point and the Empire, always so tolerant of dissent, had made him and his staff wanted men.

Cson had been traveling about, keeping one step ahead of Imperial authorities when he had been arrested on Respublica.

I called Jojo, "Saddle up, we have a job to do."

We flew two ships as had become our way and landed at different ports. Before we landed we docked and had a conference.

I explained to Jojo, "The problem is, I'm very unfamiliar with Respublica. I've never been here before. Apparently, it's the parent civilization of the small, but now famous, Naboo. While Naboo was lightly settled, Respublica was heavily enough populated that they depended heavily on imported food.

"The problem with getting Cson and his people will be time and timing. Cson's team consists of five people. Cson is the weapons expert and overall visionary leader. Ri Cover is an expert on energy systems. Hol Land is an expert on armor and structure/chassis. John Boyd is the sensor and atmospheric flight expert. Lastly, Keh Josun is the engine expert. They are being held at one location. Their families, five wives and eleven children ranging in age from newborns to their thirties are being held under house arrest, and to insure good behavior, at a second location.

"We need to find both groups before they get handed over to the Imperials. Further, we need to grab both simultaneously. If we grab one group before the other, than I'm sure security on the second group will increase exponentially."

"So, you grab one group, we grab the other?" Jojo asked.

"That's how I see it. Be careful and don't be afraid to be ruthless. I want all of us back." I said.

Bayo interjected, "We should keep blasters on stun. This world is solidly loyal to the Empire, but if you ever want to change that, a memory of terrorist rebels, dead guards and bystanders won't help."

"That actually makes a lot of sense. Thank-you Captain." I replied

"Also, a few guards won't make a big deal either way. But guards who remember with gratitude that they're not dead will be better than families with a permanent grievance." Fio said.

"Very true Padawan. I also know enough about Respublica that it's not the sort of place everybody walks armed. We all need to find discreet places to keep our weapons." Jojo explained.

"All good. Thank-you. Unfortunately, where they are being held and how is not publicly available. My review seems to show that they are most likely being held in one of two areas. The first option is the Capital. I'll land there. The second option is a large metropolitan area called Prospero, where they landed. I want you to land there. We'll both investigate discreetly. Let the Force guide you and we'll share information by encrypted commlink each evening." I explained.

"Sounds like a plan, let's get to it, we're not getting more time if this conversation goes longer." Jojo said then clapped.

We went to our ships and landed at the spaceports in question.

I had a plan.

I had checked the local HoloNet and selected a local investigator, Josephus Flavius.

As I walked off the lift from my ship, Josephus was waiting for me.

Shield and I got into his speeder. As normal, Sky wanted to stay on the ship. His speeder was large, but not very luxurious.

"Welcome to Respublica. What can I do for you? For what you're paying, the skies the limit." Josephus greeted us.

"I'm a journalist. This is my holocam droid. We want to do a story about Eric Cson. So, we need to find where he is being held. Anything you can do to facilitate will be appreciated." I answered.

"There are a number of places they may be currently held. I'll take you on a tour." Josephus suggested.

"Lead on." I replied.

Josephus took us on a tour of the central Capital. Respublica was beautiful. Many large buildings, but all ornate and beautifully built. Also, there were spaces between buildings with parks and plazas.

"Who are they?" I asked pointing at some poorly dressed people cleaning a park like droids.

"Slaves." Josephus answered.

After that I noticed there were a lot of slaves on Respublica.

Respublica also had a lot of jails, prisons and other places they might hold prisoners.

After a few fruitless hours I reached for the Force.

"Take us that way." I instructed.

Josephus drove and forty minutes later found us at a tall, white, very functional looking building.

"What's that place?" I asked.

"That's an administrative detention facility." Josephus answered.

"Is it possible they're in there?" I asked.

"Yes, very much so." He answered.

"How do we get in there?" I asked.

"We don't. Unless you can find a way past security." Josephus answered.

"Take me back to my ship. I want to do some research. Please continue to use your own resources to research the locations of the designers and their families. Also try to find a way into the facility. Contact me if you find anything." I ordered.

"Will do." Josephus said as he dropped me off at my ship.

*** Jedi Knight Jors Zaemon, Respublica, Prospero Space Port ***

We all left the ship. I had brought Boxie along, he would watch the ship in our absence.

I had gotten used to Korpluck Town. It was a lot nicer since Furry rebuilt, but Furry was a big believer in form follows function. Respublica was very into ornamentation. It was really nice. And BIG! I was from Coruscant, but it had been awhile. Unlike Coruscant, everything here started at ground level and went up. Everything was built with attention to appearance. Most of Coruscant looks like a dark industrial nightmare, things here looked like they were from fairy tales. We started walking. I noticed there were lots of groups of people moving around wearing simple rough grey cloth jumpsuits. On the chest of the suit, was an insignia that looked like a short horizontal row of metal chain links.

We took public transportation, hired cars, then walked where the Force led me and we walked into an 'Exclusive Stay' hotel that was clearly placed to serve a spaceport clientele. We walked into the bar and sat down. A well-dressed young man came and took our order. His uniform, while not simple gray cloth, also had the chain link logo on the chest.

When he served our drinks I asked, "What does that symbol on your chest mean?"

"You must be from off planet." The bar tender replied with a smile.

"Yes." I answered.

"The symbol marks it's wearer as a slave." The bartender answered politely.

The Republic had fought slavery for years. Clearly, it was back here on Respublica with a vengeance. All hail the glorious Galactic Empire.

I thanked the bartender and paid our bill. We then got up and looked around the hotel.

I found a young woman, wearing a maid's uniform which was also emblazoned with chain link logo. She was just leaving a room and was doing some folding and pushing her cart.

I stopped her. "Hello, can I ask you something?"

No doubt taking me for a customer of the hotel she replied, "Of course sir, what can I do for you."

I could feel a hint of fear in her voice.

"I believe there was a large party of women and children here for some time. From off world. Maybe in several rooms? Are they still here?" I asked.

"I'm sure I don't know." The maid said, lying poorly, but clearly afraid. Then she went on to say, "Please I'm not supposed to speak of other hotel customer's private business."

I could feel her fear growing as she spoke.

"It's important," I said. "They may be in danger."

"The wives and children of those ship men were moved." She said dissembling.

"Do you know where they were taken?" I pressed.

"I heard them say that they would be taken to the Exclusive Stay spaceport hotel in the capital. I know nothing else." She said in a broken voice.

"Tell me your name?" I said.

"Bina." She answered.

"Where do you live when you're not working here?" I asked.

"The slaves stay in a dorm behind the hotel among the service machinery." She answered.

"Thank-you very much for your help. I will be back." I replied.

*** Jedi Knight Furin Kazan, onboard Revenge, Capital Spaceport, Respublica ***

Once aboard, I contacted Jojo. "With the business I'm doing I'm swimming in blue ink."

"Lots of blue ink here too." He replied.

"I think I have a location. Not sure if I have the men or the wives and children or both." I said.

Jojo replied, "I think I have a location for the wives and children at the Exclusive Stay Spaceport Hotel in the capital."

"So that means I must have the men." I replied.

"So, I'm going to get myself up there. I'll meet you there." Jojo said.

The next day Jojo met me at the spaceport. We went to Josephus together. We checked the hotel and got some eyeballs on the well protected rooms of the family. Then, Josephus took us to a place near the Administrative Detention Facility.

"This is the company that does the laundry for the facility. For the right price, they could smuggle you in." Josephus explained.

Some negotiations with a fat, sweaty, balding man who clearly abused his female slaves would get Shield and me into the Facility that night.

A while later, back on the Bearer we laid down the plan, fairly simply, "You go get them out of the Facility and Bayo and I will get the families." Jojo concluded.

"Done and done." I said.

*** Jedi Knight Jors Zaemon, Respublica ***

Bayo and I made our way to the rooms in question at the hotel.

There was a guard on each room. Not bad. We zap the guards. Get in the rooms. Get them out and Fio meets us at the entrance, next stop Dandoran.

We pulled our blasters and stunned the guards. Then we moved to the doors. Then, with amazing speed, a host of guards with pulled blaster rifles filled the hall from every direction including out of the rooms in question.

"Halt!" One of them yelled.

They had us. There was no way.

*** Jedi Knight Furin Kazan, Respublica ***

I went with a group of slaves into the facility. With my new natural abilities, fitting in wasn't a problem. Shield on the other hand, the point of having slaves was to save on droids.

"What's that droid doing with you?" The guard asked from behind the outside speaker.

"Special problem with the plumbing. The droid is here to fix it." The foreman slave of our little group replied.

After a split second of tension, the guard's voice said tiredly, "C'mon in."

In we went, and we cleaned from the top, 7th floor down to the 3rd where Cson's people were.

I had just opened the door and seen Cson and his associates when groups of very serious looking blaster rifle armed guards popped out from several directions.

"Halt!" They yelled.

I liked my chances. I had my light sabers and blaster ready to go. Shield had a deflector shield and two high power blaster machine guns. Plowing through a crowd of guards like this was kind of our specialty.

At the same time, we were with a group of innocent civilians who would likely get shot to smithereens. Further, Cson, our objective, was behind us and not likely to withstand an intense firefight. There was also the little consideration that if we started shooting it out, Respublica had a substantial Imperial naval task force. I could see them blasting the building down around us. I didn't want to figure out how well my new physiology could cope with a Star Destroyer's main cannon with direct experimentation.

Strangely, I also felt the Force telling me to be patient.

I raised my hands.

We were escorted to a very secure cell that already contained Jojo and Bayo.

We waived at each other and grimaced.

We were held in the cell for just over thirteen hours.

Then, a large group of guards came and put us all in wrist binders and put a restraining bolt on Shield. The guards escorted us to an important, and very ornate looking, government building. We were put on a service lift, one by one, surrounded by guards and taken to the top floor.

When we were all assembled, we were walked into a room that looked like a penthouse observatory and very luxurious apartment. A major domo announced, "The Chief Praefectus of Respublica Security, the honorable Androccoles of Respublica."

*** Bounty Hunter Mahe Jiru ***

Jiru was frustrated. His regular informants were coming up oaf eggs on any clues as to the Jedi's whereabouts. Time and Credits were burning. Flying here, flying there, it put wear and tear on his ship. Burned expensive fuel. Wasted time and time was money. Jiru calmed himself. Every serious bounty was like this. If they were easy to find, easy to take, someone else would have done it or they wouldn't be worth much. High Credit bounties took patience.

Then something broke. The Empire lost another Star Destroyer. Jiru knew of only one of those that the Empire had lost yet. Could it be a coincidence? Worth checking out. Nothing else was bringing in any leads.

Jiru traveled to Die Tze discreetly. Die Tze was now under Imperial blockade. There were three Star Destroyers in orbit now and lots of TIE fighter patrols. That was okay, no need to rush. Jiru knew how this would go. At first the Empire would be swarming about like a bunch of angry nyigu jackets. If they found the offending party, well, that was likely not Jiru's Jedi. If they didn't, well the Empire needed those Star Destroyers for a lot of different jobs, eventually at least two would leave. Jiru would just find a quiet rock to sit on and wait.

A few days went by and, lo and behold, two Star Destroyers found better places to go. Jiru decided to stay on his rock and see what happened. Seven days later, comm traffic picked up a lot between the ground and the ship. From the bits Jiru had codes for and the bits that were in the clear, it was obvious that a major insurrection had just started on the planet. Imperial targets had been hit. Personnel had been killed. Transports started to run to bring down supplies and bring up wounded and dead. TIE fighters were launched down to the planet for fire support missions. Must be some mean fighting going on.

Then a small ship jumped in system. It shot at some TIEs and ran. The TIEs chased. While the TIEs were chasing, another ship of similar make slinked in-system and landed. Based on where he came from, Jiru could make a pretty good guess where he would be going. Jiru quietly got his ship in position and when the ship came back off Die Tze, Jiru got an encrypted tracker on it.

There weren't too many hyperspace lanes the way the ship had left so Jiru made a best guess and followed.

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	4. Chapter 4

**Legend of the Harp**

 **Episode III: The Crucible**

 **Chapter 4: Do or Do Not**

*Jedi Padawan Fio, Castanea*

I was taking such a pleasant nap in my co-pilot's seat. It was such a comfortable seat. I was so grateful to Incom and Harp for making sure the seats were so comfy. I'd had a bad dream about some sort of battle in space but that couldn't have been real.

Somewhere, deep down, I knew I needed to wake up, but waking up would mean something bad. I was having such a nice dream about flower picking, such a wonderful pastime. My mother and I had gone picking flowers when I was a little girl. We would take a picnic and spend the day in the countryside. We would make each other garlands. Momma would tell me stories of Jedi Knights rescuing princesses. The flowers would be used in decorations and scents which Momma would sell in the store. Which was strange, because the scents should be so beautiful, but they all smelled like acrid smoke and the smell was getting worse.

Suddenly, the Force snapped me awake. I was still in the broken U-Wing. Then something amazing happened. I knew I had to get out. Right now. I felt myself working with the Force like I never have before. When I had tried before, I was focused on using the Force like an invisible tool, telling it what to do in the smallest degree. Trying to control the Force by the strength of my grasp. This was completely different. The Force was flowing through me. I was opening the blast shield over the plex view port before me. I was pushing the broken plex out and away. I was unbuckling myself from the chair. I was flinging myself from the ship through the open plex windscreen into open space face first like I was diving into a lake, not knowing what was there, but having faith in the Force that I would have a way to land safely. All at the same time.

A split second later, I was on the ground having dropped 20 meters to land gracefully on my feet. The ship, which had been sitting in a tree and burning, fell to the ground a little ways away. Fire engulfed the ship. There was a small explosion. I was flung to the ground. Everything and everyone that was still inside was clearly gone. The ship's crew, the platoon of militia, the supplies, the long-range sub space transmitter, my rifle, all were definitely gone.

I had a small transmitter built into my left sleeve, but it was short range. My cuff transmitter was supposed to link into the ship's transmitter if I needed to call home. So, for the time being, I would be my own. Eventually, Dodger and the Harp would come looking for me, but until then, I'd have to make do. I also still had a mission.

It was a strange feeling then. On the one hand, I had achieved a tremendous breakthrough with my ability to use the Force. I'd finally realized what Dodger and Harp meant when they kept saying, often exasperated, "Try to feel the Force flowing through you."

I knew from now on I'd always call the Force that way and my Jedi skills had taken a quantum leap. However, I'd lost my entire command. I'd even lost my rifle. The droids, the galaxy might have a question about how sentient they were, but they were gone now. The people. The people with parents, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, some even children who would never see their loved ones again. They wouldn't even get a body. Even if we could salvage the vessel, there would be next to nothing left.

All that time in space combat training, I thought I was doing so well. I actually thought I was a pretty good space combat pilot. The first time I see an actual enemy ship and I'm down. All that training on the ground and all I had been able to do was dream about daisies. I was supposed to be a Jedi. Fat lot of good my being a "Jedi" did any of them.

Luckily, everything was very wet and cold. I could see mists moving through the air. So, despite a majority of the planet's land mass being covered with massive deciduous forests, my ship burning itself out wouldn't cause a massive fire. However, there was plenty of flammable and explosive material in the ship. It would burn well.

While I knew no one else had made it out, still I did a search. I had a small, weak scanner. It couldn't see anything. I reached out with the Force. I felt nothing. I tried to do a perimeter search. The surface was fallen logs, moss, brush, completely irregular. All wet. All covered with mist. There could be a trooper two meters from me and I'd never know. I did the perimeter search anyway. As I expected, I found nothing.

Now what would I do? Somewhere on this ball was supposed to be a Jedi in hiding. Maybe. We could have a million troops and a thousand Jedi and still not find someone. Even if they wanted to be found. If I was a Jedi who'd been hiding from the Empire all this time, I wouldn't want to be found.

So, what to do? As Dodger would say, "When you've tried everything else?"

I sat down and meditated.

*** And now a word from our sponsor! ***

Please imagine a chorus line of attractive, scantily clad, very fit high steppers in the gender of your choice!

This writer, like the story teller in the market of old, now has a hat out hoping for a small gratuity. There is no obligation and I'm grateful you took a moment to read. However, if my writing has found favor in your eyes, please take a moment to go to:

Pay

Pal

.me

/hemaccabe

and throw in a little something, a dime, a quarter, a dollar, etc.

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Please help. Thank-you.


	5. Chapter 5

**Legend of the Harp**

 **Episode III: The Crucible**

 **Chapter 5: Theory and Practice**

*** Jedi Knight Furin Kazan, Dandoran System, The Rock ***

My conversations with Commodore Spruance were, for now, concluded and I had a better understanding of the war we faced before us, as well as a better understanding of why the Alliance was nervous about doing business with me. I left Commodore Spruance on The Rock and proceeded back toward Dandoran on Revenge.

Clearly, a well-organized fleet would have an advantage if they were on defense. Nearly every major government that had comprised the Galactic Republic, and many of those which had not, kept a significant military. For the Empire to impose itself, it would need to send a substantial military force to each system, sufficient to overrun the individual system's fleet. Since the local fleet would have the advantage, that would have to be a considerable force.

The Empire would have to move to deal with major potential rivals quickly, lest they become nodes around which resistance could form, such as Corellia and Mandalore. The Empire had. Further, the Empire's strategy, to be apparently strong rather than actually strong, made sense. Star Destroyers clearly underperformed for a ship of their size. TIE fighters were clearly purchased for their price, not their combat effectiveness. However, a typical system politician would see only massive warships much larger than anything they had and swarms of fighters in far greater numbers than they could deploy. They don't build statues to leaders who lead their people into catastrophic defeat. Further, the Empire didn't have unlimited military resources, but they could certainly mass fleets large enough to overrun any given member government's resistance.

Salient had been an example of such resistance. A well organized and prepared system sized government choosing to go down fighting rather than knuckle under. Salient hadn't been unique. There were plenty of places with Separatist holdouts, restive populations and those who would not set down their principals when it was convenient like Ryloth.

However, the Empire had gotten more than they bargained for at Salient. The Empire had prevailed and set the example that defiance was ruin. However, the Empire had gotten quite the bloody nose. The price of Salient was not one the Empire could pay thousands of times.

My job was to make it as hard as possible for the Empire to impose itself. They had tried to subsume the Corellian fleet and I had given a substantial portion of the fleet a way out. They had wanted to control galactic banking, but I had dealt with the Banking Clans. They should have been able to bring Ryloth to heel, but I had been pouring in supplies that had kept Cham in the fight.

I had also been providing supplies to people and groups like Saw Gerrera and his Partisans. The Alliance had condemned Saw's methods as too brutal. I understood why. When the Partisans blew up a school full of children, it didn't encourage the general public to oppose the Empire. Quite the contrary. However, I agreed with Saw's reasoning. The resources that the Empire spent over responding, the negative impression that over response created, the sense that someone was doing something was enough.

I had been following Senators Organa and Mothma's movement as it had blossomed into something called the Alliance. It was the most dangerous threat to the Empire yet because it had the potential to strike at the Empire's greatest weakness, their only apparent strength. Salient and her sister martyrs had demonstrated that strong resistance to the Empire was possible. If enough systems and their militaries banded together, they could challenge the Empire. Those systems might each be numerically inferior, but with qualitatively better ships and troops. If enough of them banded together and committed enough resources, they had the potential to defeat the Empire in open battle.

Of course, each system only had a small military to itself and risked being singled out by the Empire should they join this "Alliance." Getting local governments to join the Alliance, which meant they risked Emberlene treatment, and then commit substantial forces, which meant they would be less well defended at home and thus more vulnerable to Emberlene treatment would be quite the diplomatic trick for Organa and Mothma. Even if the Alliance could assemble a large enough fleet from member government's contributions, before their war was done, it would mean there would likely be more Emberlenes.

Up till now, this new Alliance hadn't wanted the Harp to be openly involved with their movement because of my association with the Partisans and because I was apparently a criminal. It stung but made sense. I wanted this nascent Alliance to succeed much more than I wanted some empty prestige.

While this nascent Alliance wasn't willing to accept me openly, they were willing to accept ships like a large number of UT-60s in the D variant, GR-75 transports and a squadron of X-Wings. They also accepted large numbers of A-280 rifles, uniforms and a wealth of other equipment. Not to mention endless deliveries of food, fuel and other consumables. I wasn't so low that they couldn't accept that support, as long as I was discreet. I had offered training, it had been declined. Hopefully, they could find bodies to put into that gear.

Now I was going to return to the New Temple and get some work done, then off to Sultoon.

A few hours later saw us landing at the Temple. I wanted to check on my new project, the new generation of Vulture droids.

This project was being overseen by Shield and carried out by my droid workshop at the Temple.

Shield met me at the bottom of my ship's ramp.

"How goes the project?" I began.

"It goes well. The first prototype is complete. When it passes testing successfully, we will begin mass production." Shield replied.

"Excellent. We have a lot of empty berths and could use those craft." I replied.

"I understand." Shield replied.

We had three light carrier/landing ships and a dedicated landing ship. We also had a lot of installations like Elysia, Sultoon, Mustelidae, Emberlene and, not to mention, Dandoran. There was also this Temple and the Stash to think of. We only had so many X-Wings and Epsilon Vultures. More would be better. I could also point out we had another carrier under construction.

I went with Shield to the shop and met our first new Eta class Vulture.

"Welcome aboard." I said to the prototype.

"I am honored to meet the Harp." The Vulture replied in a particularly mechanical voice.

The Eta prototype was a little bigger than the Epsilons we had in inventory. It looked good.

Shield sent the Eta out and it did a very convincing demonstration. The Eta out flew three Epsilons. We wanted to try it against X-Wings but didn't want to show our hand before absolutely necessary.

We had some X-Wings here at the Temple, so I suited up and took one out. The Eta was very effective. I would guess I could beat him about half the time. Sky used Revenge to practice with the Eta as well. It did well.

After I was back at the station I had a conference with Shield.

"Well it seems like the Eta is doing well." I began.

"Assuming testing goes well, we should be able to go to full production in three weeks. At that point, we should be able to have a completed craft every 62 hours. We have sufficient parts kits to produce 96 craft. All suppliers have been alerted to have additional parts kits ready on short notice." Shield reported.

"Any problems?" I asked.

"The supplier for the torpedo warheads is being recalcitrant on shipment. I have described this problem before." Shield replied.

"Master Zaemon is tasked to deal with that after his current task." I explained then continued, "Prepare me a report on what would be necessary to increase the pace of production. Seems like you have things well in hand. Keep me updated."

I gave Shield my farewell and proceeded to my next errand.

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	6. Chapter 6

**Legend of the Harp**

 **Episode III: The Crucible**

 **Chapter 6: The Planet of the Bounty**

*** Bounty Hunter Mahe Jiru, Dandoran System, Near the Rock ***

Jiru had been watching the Rock, or more specifically, that round black ship as it sat in the Rock. Jiru noted that the "Rock", which clearly served as the Corellian Patriotic Fleet's main base, sat in orbit above a massive gas giant in the outer reaches of the Dandoran system. As was common with such gas giants, there was plenty of radiation, detritus, rocks, ice and other bits sharing the orbit. This was ideal for hiding the base from Imperial eyes. Unfortunately, it was also perfect for Jiru's ship, which was sitting concealed on a conveniently placed lump of space detritus.

As the quarry's round black ship had sat warm in that station for three days. The lump of detritus that had sheltered Jiru's ship was cold, just above absolute zero and floated in cold space. Jiru had to keep his ship at the lowest possible power to avoid detection. It had been a cold three days. Jiru had kept himself warm thinking about the cabin he would build on Elysia.

Eventually, the round black ship had pulled out of the warm rock. One could tell how warm by the steam that frequently vented. Jiru also noticed the almost supernaturally neat way the black ship maneuvered, and even vented, which meant that it was likely droid piloted. Another luxury. When the black ship completed it's maneuvers, it then blasted away on an unknown vector into hyperspace.

This moment could have been frustrating for a lot of bounty hunters. Sit in icy cold for three days just for the quarry to skip away to parts unknown. Not for Jiru though. Jiru knew where to go, where he would pick up the ship again.

Jiru waited a couple hours. A personnel transport with terrible scanners ran from the Rock to the station above Dandoran and back every day. It was the simplest thing to ghost in behind the transport undetected. Then Jiru could follow the transport back to the station invisibly. Any scanner would see only one dot, explained by the transport.

When, several hours later, they arrived at the station, it was easy for Jiru to break away in the general clutter of ships and request a berth. The station sat nicely above Korpluck Town, which allowed Jiru to set up surveillance. At least the food was good. Jiru wasn't sure why, but the rations one purchased at the station and at the space port on the ground were unusually good.

Jiru had originally hoped to bag both quarries together, but the battle at Sultoon had taught him a lesson. It would be better to take the quarries one at a time. As luck would have it, the quarries spent a great deal of time apart. The rules of hunting were simple, take the weaker quarry first. Zaemon had been one of the best blades of the era and a war hero. Kazan and his four ungainly arms had been a middling blade at best. Clearly the Hero of Plynth was the better choice. Kazan spent his time running from one idle pursuit to the next on his custom black yacht. Eventually, Jiru would corner him and take his bounty and his life.

Jiru knew eventually the round black ship would return to Dandoran station. Eventually, if Jiru was patient, he would get his chance.

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	7. Chapter 7

**Legend of the Harp**

 **Episode III: The Crucible**

 **Chapter 7: Float Like a Butterfly**

*** Jedi Knight Jors Zaemon, Stygeon Prime, aboard Bearer, above Spire Prison ***

Furry was off on his errands and, for the first time, Fio was off on hers. I was worried about Fio, but what could happen to her? She was going to an unoccupied planet with a squad of troops to keep her safe.

I didn't even have Bayo. He was being responsible and keeping the various militias organized and operating.

I did have a crew. For once I had a real crew for Bearer. There was a pilot, navigator, four gunners, and two engineers. There was even an R4 Lieutenant in command. She was a good kid, not much older than Fio, she had just finished Officer's Training on the Rock with the CPF, but she was all Harp Fleet.

My crew all wore the, based on the Corellian Guard Fleet, standard duty uniform of the Harp Fleet. The duty uniform was a very practical and unromantic blue pressure suit. Kept in pockets around the suit were gloves and a bag one could pull over one's head. In a decompression situation, one could have the gloves and bag on in seconds and might survive. Harp Fleet crew drilled on this so they could do it swiftly under bad circumstances. There was also a button on the uniform one could press, if lost in space, that would make the suit turn orange and start flashing.

I also had a platoon of Harp Militia aboard. Normally that would mean only one Ball droid, but, in addition to the normal complement of biologic and droid troopers, we had a squad of five Balls in recognition that three-dimensional movement might be particularly useful on this mission.

I also had a CPF expert, Lieutenant Commander Pumfrey. We would be trying to penetrate the Spire prison on Stygeon Prime. There was likely no more difficult challenge, no more heavily guarded location in the galaxy. LCDR Pumfrey was one of the few Sappers that had come with the fleet. The Corellian Guard Fleet had not been keeping an excessive number of such individuals on payroll. Most had stayed on Corellia. We had searched our roles for anyone with anything approaching the useful skills we would need, we came up with only one name.

"Maybe we could hire some outside talent?" I had asked Furry after we held a first interview with Pumfrey.

"Take him, he's already on the payroll." Furry replied.

I'm not sure that reflected some Force insight on Furry's part or a desire to save Credits.

Pumfrey was short, balding and had a potbelly. He also had a tendency to sweat and lose his breath on short walks. Despite these fine features, he had a tendency to be a bit self-grandiose.

"I just need to be elected Fleet Admiral, then I will route those Imperial dogs from Corellia!" Was something I had heard him saying to himself several times when he didn't think anyone else was listening.

We had managed to insert ourselves over Stygeon Prime, by landing on one of the two moons above the planet. We would have liked to be on a rock in geosynchronous orbit directly above the prison, but none currently existed. Moving a rock into such a position might have been a bit too obvious. I could just imagine what they would say in the prison if a new satellite just suddenly showed up in geosynchronous orbit above the prison. Certainly, we would have been explaining it to the TIE fighters that came to investigate.

We had come out of hyperspace well out to minimize our emergence signature. We had carefully maneuvered into the system keeping rock between us and the planet, trying to be careful not to set off any remote sensors. We had managed to land, carefully, on the moon with the lower orbit on the side away from the surface. Our platoon of troopers got some EVA time setting up camouflage netting. Bearer already had a long com boom above her spine which we extended. The troopers also got to set up a bunch of other mission specific passive scan gear, particularly some big optical scanners during their EVA.

About every 22 hours we got an hour of observations. We were building a library, learning when ships came in and left. When shifts changed. What level of security particular openings had. What spots might be able to be penetrated.

I was trying to focus all of my Force insight on Mistress Unduli. It would be very useful if I could communicate with her, even just get her a sense we were here. I could feel her down there, but something was wrong. I couldn't establish any sort of contact.

We needed to hit this place fast, preferably having Mistress Unduli in hand before they knew we were there. We could overpower the place, bring in a big fleet and a battalion or two of troopers. The problem with that strategy was that if Mistress Unduli was alive down there now, they'd probably execute her the second our force showed up. Even if they didn't, the nature of a built-up emplacement like this was to give better than they got. It would be expensive in the lives of our troopers and ships trying to take this place. During the Clone Wars, a Jedi life would be considered a strategic objective worthy of expending many, poorly valued, clone lives. If there was any way the Order was truly complicit in the crime of using clones, it was in the way they consistently undervalued their lives. I tried to treat my clones with respect and dignity, value their lives as much as I would any other sentient being. But I was only one Jedi, clearly the Order's policy had not been the same. Still, I had followed orders and taken my battalion down to Exxelon knowing they would face those terrible casualties. The rational side of me stood by my actions and choices. I would have taken a battalion of any troops down to Exxelon. The strategic value was clear. It was worth the casualties. My heart didn't believe my rational side completely and probably never would. I'm not sure I could justify the lives of several hundred of our troopers and space crew for one Jedi.

It was also very possible this entire place was a setup and trap. That there were Imperial forces just off board just waiting to warp in and close the trap on such a rescue had to be a given.

After a couple weeks of observations, I had a conference with Pumfrey.

"We could build a space elevator down to the planet, lower an assault force, then reel them in once they have the objective in hand." Pumfrey suggested.

"Aside from the fact that such an elevator has many drawbacks, including being fragile, it would cost billions of Credits. There is also the likelihood that the people on the ground might just notice it being built and lowered." I replied, trying not to sound tart.

"Maybe that idea needs work." Pumfrey replied.

"Have you been able to determine if there are any openings where schedules of guards leave a weak spot we may be able to exploit? Have you been able to find an insertion path that would avoid their sensors?" I asked.

"Not yet, but I'll work on it." Pumfrey replied.

"You do that." I ordered.

I then left to go back to my own quarters to work the problem.

I'd been reviewing what we had learned and hadn't found an answer. Yet. Most facilities, even very secure facilities, had gaps in their sensor coverage. Sensors were expensive, and space was big. This place had overlapping fields. It also seemed like shifts of guards overlapped. Still every place had a weakness, I would find this one's.

*** And now a word from our sponsor! ***

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Please help. Thank-you.


	8. Chapter 8

**Legend of the Harp**

 **Episode III: The Crucible**

 **Chapter 8: When you're going…**

*** Jedi Padawan Fio Brown, Castanea ***

I had been making my way across the ground as best I could. Even with the ease the Force gave my movements, it was still hard going. The surface of Dandoran had its bad spots, but this was so much worse.

Dandoran's forests still had paths where a decent person could pass between the trees. This place, everywhere that wasn't the huge building sized base of one of these monster trees was fallen tree, heavy brush, deep mulch and fungus. If not all of them mixed together! On top of that, it was all wet and the heavy mist meant you couldn't see a foot in front of your face most of the time.

I had been through survival training in various ways three times! The first time, in the middle of winter, a record cold winter mind you, and I had never felt this cold. Which was mighty strange as this place wasn't that cold, somewhere around 10 C. But it was so damp! You could see some of the droplets of water floating in the air they were so big. My camo tops were soaked, which wasn't surprising. What was surprising was my thermal layer. It was supposed to be waterproof and good at dispersing my excess moisture. I was soaked through. I was probably carrying an extra 12 to 20 kilos of moisture with me. All of it 10 C. It was that moisture which was freezing me.

I'd been going for a few hours. I didn't want to ever sleep or eat again as I didn't think I'd ever be able to stop thinking about the troopers I'd lost, but I had been through Survival Training. Three times.

So, I pulled out my canteen. One can draw several simple, basic function, different sized and shaped canteens from the Quartermaster as a member of the militia. I had used that bottomless Credit chip Harp had given me when we first met to go to the special stores and get myself something better. My canteen is shaped like a very standard, 1-liter, military canteen. Its flat oval bottom expands to a larger rounder top with a spout. It has the standard curve to sit better on the hip and a cloth belt carrier. I kept the canteen empty on the ship. What made this canteen special was a little vent it had. The vent was a couple square centimeter rectangle along the bottom. I could stick that vent in anything, a dirty pond, a muddy puddle, pee, it would suck up fluid and my canteen would fill with pure, perfect, distilled water.

I flipped the canteen on now and it drew in mist and began making water. The canteen would self-power, using my movement as it sat on my hip to recharge itself. This made me glad I was in mist. If it was snow, I'd have to jam the snow in the vent.

The canteen had another party trick. Once the water was inside, it would be right around ambient temperature, or 10 C here. If that wasn't cold enough, I could hit a button and it would chill the water right down. I could hit a different button and it would heat the water up to a nice boil.

Which led to the canteen's last party trick. One could add a pellet, a little lozenge about half a centimeter long and a quarter in diameter and give the water in the canteen a flavor. I had some pellets for hot weather that would give the water the flavor of purple an'nav fruit. It would also give the water some carbs and other nutrients that one's body might go through in hot weather during heavy exertion. It might sound flighty, but when you're humping a 45-kilo pack in 38+C and 100%+ humidity, a liter of ice cold water that tastes like purple an'nav can be the difference between success and failure.

I wouldn't need ice water here. So, when the canteen was full, I hit the other button and heated the water up. If one was a real canteen idiot, rather than just buying the flavor pellets like I did with the purple an'nav pellets, I might buy a whole pellet making appliance that sat on my Mom's kitchen counter.

My Mom would make her famous oaf bird and noodle soup, with lots of veggies the way she knew I liked it. I had always loved Momma's soup and it was one of the things that had gotten better the last few years. It used to be veggies were rare and expensive in Korpluck Town. Now, with all those new farms setting up shop, vegetables were a lot more available and a lot more cheap. Not to mention people had money to buy them.

Momma would make a big batch of soup, put it in the appliance, and out would come soup tablets.

I had a collection of little bottles with different flavors I took with me on maneuvers. My Mom had sewed on a cloth strip that created perfect elastic carrying spots for the bottles on the outside of my pack, then a padded flap I could put down to hold them in and protect them more.

I took one of my Mom's homemade pellets and dropped it in the canteen. In moments, I had a hot canteen full of oaf bird soup. I put the canteen inside my thermal layer and let it warm my icy cold body. When the soup was merely hot, not scalding, I took it out and drank it down, letting it take me away from being a cold wet failure to being a safe little girl in my Mom's kitchen begging for cookies I wouldn't get till I ate my supper.

Feeling a little better and a little warmer, I sat down cross legged on a fallen tree log, taller sideways then my Mom's house was right ways and did a bit of meditating.

My meditation was a lot clearer and more intense now that I wasn't forcing it and was letting it flow through me. I realized I could feel the other Jedi! I even had a sense of what direction and how far. Between the soup and the knowledge that I might just succeed in my mission, I got up and began to move.

Every few hours I would stop and meditate again. I could still feel the other Jedi, but the strange thing was, I realized I wasn't getting any closer. It took me a while, but then I figured it out. This was not a two-dimensional environment. The trees all around me climbed dozens of meters into the sky. That other Jedi was up there somewhere. She was far away, and I wasn't sure what I would do when I found her, but at least we would be together. Eventually the Harp and Dodger would notice I was missing and come look.

I was just starting to think I might not always feel like a complete idiot failure when I heard the unmistakable tone of an Imperial Storm Trooper helmet say, "Put your hands up and turn around slowly rebel scum, click, click!"

*** And now a word from our sponsor! ***

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Please help. Thank-you.


	9. Chapter 9

**Legend of the Harp**

 **Episode III: The Crucible**

 **Chapter 9: Silent Running**

*** Jedi Knight Furin Kazan, Thessa Loniki, outer rim ***

I had a brief errand on my way to Sultoon. I needed to visit an old friend.

We landed on the backwater world of Thessa Loniki, there wasn't even a port. However, I needed to deliver supplies.

Sky did her usual excellent job. We had been forced to strap down our four Vultures topside on Revenge because underneath, we were carrying four extra-large sized cargo containers full of gear. The gear was what Saw had asked for. Admittedly, the cargo was heavy on explosives, but included a wide variety of other gear, including rifles, ammo, food, medical supplies, even a couple X-Wings.

I came down the ramp as we allowed his people to unload the cargo bay inside the Revenge as well.

Saw came forward, looking bluff and hearty. I could see he was still working out walking with one prosthetic leg, still he had recovered well from the Imperial assassination attempt. We grasped arms.

"Again, you come to support my war?" He asked facetiously and in good humor.

"We fight the same war. I'm glad there is someone else willing to take up arms. I would be the brother of any such man." I replied in the broad language I knew he liked.

I noticed standing just behind Saw and to his right was a young woman with pale skin and dark hair. Her bangs came so far down her forehead they almost hid her eyes. She kept her face down, hiding it, but then her face came up and she looked me in the eyes and for moment seemed both timid and bold. I noticed she was about the same age as Fio.

I had come to deliver supplies, but I also had a second mission. I wanted to say something right then and there, but I knew it wasn't the right moment. I could be patient.

I had arrived around local noon. It took the better part of the afternoon for Saw's Partisans to unload the supplies I had brought them. With limited infrastructure, it had required a lot of brute strength and hard work. By evening though, the job was done and a sense of satisfaction with hard work well done settled on Saw's camp.

While Saw had completed his work, I worked with Sky to release and ready our Vultures. By the end of the afternoon, they were running sky cap in pairs.

With the excellent food supplies I had brought, the Partisan cooks had prepared a large meal for all. At Jojo's suggestion, I had brought casks of ale, enough for everyone to have at least one mug. Between hard work, a good meal and a mug of ale, all were in a state restful satisfaction.

I sat with Saw and pretended to eat and drink. At the end of the meal, I passed around a handful of spice cigars and we shared a smoke.

Saw began, "I sense you have need to talk to me?"

"Yes, when we can talk privately." I replied.

I had passed useful intel to Saw several times this way and gotten some in return. I had learned, for example, that the Empire had committed genocide on Geonosis as they were clearly trying to hide something. Saw had been hunting some sort of Imperial super weapon. I assumed it was the Super Star Destroyer I knew they were working on but Saw thought it was something different.

When most of the Partisan's had gone to seek their private rest, I joined Saw in his cargo container office/bedroom. He pulled out a bottle of brandy and we both shared a glass served in some very humble tumblers. I handed him a valise full of hard Credits. These quiet one on one moments were when I normally would give him this most sensitive part of my assistance. I know Credits from other such assistance from me had paid for many things for Saw, including his top of the line new leg.

"So? Out with it. What do you want?" Saw asked.

"The girl with you earlier today, do you know who she is?" I asked.

My intelligence sources had identified the young woman as none other but Jyn Erso, the elusive only daughter of notorious Imperial Weapon's Scientist, Galen Erso. It didn't take a genius conspirator to think of a number of ways such a young woman could be used. I knew it was cold and calculating on my part to think of using her in such a way, but we were at war. One had to accept certain practicalities in war, even if they weren't the highest of ethics. I knew Saw had not been above putting his people in danger and even expending them as necessary. It was an obvious move to use the girl in such a way, so I assumed Saw was simply ignorant of her origins.

"Do you know it was that girl who killed the Imperial assassin who did this?" Saw asked patting his prosthetic leg.

"I didn't." I answered a bit puzzled. I could sense that Saw's feelings for this girl were different than his feelings for his other people, more fatherly. They reminded me of the feelings I got from Jojo about Fio.

"Still, knowing her parentage opens up several possible avenues." I replied.

I didn't think of Saw as someone who acted much on sentiment.

"She's one of my best cadres. Very dedicated." Saw replied still clearly deflecting from the idea of using her.

I decided to do something very cold then. I reached out with the Force and noticed another of Saw's senior cadres, a particularly ruthless one named Staven was passing by. I gave Staven the idea to come and listen at Saw's cloth door.

Staven wasn't very subtle as he approached the door, he must have slipped on a rock or something. I knew Saw also knew someone was outside.

Still I went on to say, "That girl has enormous strategic value. We need to use it. This could be a major intelligence victory. In fact, her father could be working on the super weapon you're always looking for."

"I can't say it any more clearly. I don't want her used that way." Saw replied stubbornly, but we both knew the damage was done.

Knowledge of who Jyn Erso was would spread through the camp. Even if Saw didn't want to use her as a hostage or bargaining chip, his senior lieutenants, like Staven, would force his hand.

"If that is how you feel, then I must assume our conversation is complete. I wish you well. We'll set up a new rendezvous on Jedha." I said concluding and standing up.

I knew Saw was relocating to Jedha soon. Saw frequently used this sort of back and forth. He would remove himself to a remote location and use the quiet to train up a new batch of Partisans. When Saw had put an edge on his new batch of recruits, he would move back to an offensive footing. Thessa Loniki was a quiet spot. Saw was almost ready to go to Jedha where he clearly intended to use his rebuilt force to attack Imperial occupation forces. I was fully in favor of Saw's strategy and my supplies were physical representations of that approval.

We grasped arms again, though this time far less cordially than we had on my arrival.

I left thinking about how I had never been to Jedha. I had promised the Council all those years ago I would go and had never went. Perhaps I would do some meditating in the Temple there when I went? I definitely felt I had gotten my way with Saw. Perhaps I had been a bit ruthless and manipulative of a friend and ally, but this was a war. This war would not be another Plynth because I wasn't ruthless enough to use my soldiers to obtain victory. I intended to win.

I returned to my ship and we were on our way to our next task.

Sky's consistently excellent flying…

"Thank-you love." Sky chirped in my head as I thought that.

Had delivered me on time, despite our side trip, to Sultoon Platform. It could be tricky navigating Sultoon system, even with clear knowledge of where the Platform was.

I had a series of meetings with various departments on the Platform. All was well. Profits were up. I gave hints about a possible annual bonus I had already decided we would give. The workers were happy. One area I would have to deal with was upgrading the transport to Elysia, but that was minor. We would either add another cheap transport or up it to a GR-75. We'd have to see.

Saving the best for last, I met with my team overseeing the Separatist Communication network.

While I provided a wide range of physical support, the biggest thing I offered this new Alliance was an independent communications system. The Separatist Communication Network had been an independent network, not controlled by the Republic and now Empire. Was this network perfectly secure? No. Was it absolutely compromised like the Imperial network? Also no.

The problem was keeping the network in repair. It was a huge collection of satellites and ground installations. Thousands in all. When the Separatists had run the network, they had an army of droid technicians and it hadn't been enough. I had a handful of the Separatist tech droids we had salvaged and some biologic crews. It was enough to slow the decline, not stop it.

I entered the conference room and took the being sitting at the head of the table to be a female Mon Calamari. I greeted her in Mon Cal only to notice her confused face.

She was a human whose brown skin and long face just looked like a Mon Calamari! How embarrassing. I greeted the whole room in Galactic Standard and sat down. After that we got to work.

There wasn't a lot new at the meeting. Just the standard, sad, slow decline of the network.

At the end there was some good news.

"We have found a major relay hub that was thought lost in an ion storm. It's currently non-functional but could possibly be brought back online. In addition, it happens to be located in a nearly ideal location for our special clients. If we could bring this relay back online, it would actually improve overall system performance." One of the techs announced.

"Then we need to do it. Why haven't we got out there already?" I replied.

"The relay has been out of communication for some time. It might be worthwhile to have someone check it out to make sure it's safe to work on." The Tech explained.

That made sense. Anything from pirates to giant space roaches could have infested the place. There was also the obvious, it was an Imperial trap. There was an obvious candidate.

"I'll take some gear and give the place a once over. Once it's been cleared, I'll leave a few droid guards. While I'm there, I'll see if there's anything I can do."

The Tech replied, "Thank-you sir."

We did a little more planning. Sky would leave me at the relay and ferry some other techs to another project, then she would bring the techs back to me at the relay.

With my meetings concluded, I loaded some com repair gear onto Revenge and Sky whisked me back to Dandoran.

I had a number of meetings to conduct which I wanted done quickly. I tried to get an update from Fio but couldn't get through. That wasn't a surprise, even the best interstellar communication was at the whim of the alignment of the stars. Jojo hadn't checked in, which meant his mission was running long. Nothing to be done about it now. I left a message for Jojo explaining where I was going.

After running a few more errands, we proceeded to the relay. The relay was basically a large space station designed and built for communication processing and re-transmission. We did a quick survey from space and found that while she had taken some wear and tear, she was in pretty good condition. Apparently, the relay had been placed in orbit around a star that was close to going nova. Perhaps the big red ball would go sometime in the next million years or so. On the way to that happy date, she was firing more intense eruptions and flares. The relay had been caught close to one of the energetic displays and been a bit cooked. Normally, a relay like this wouldn't be placed in such a system. The relay was a major capital expense and those responsible for such things liked to place them in very stable locations. However, the Separatists had been more focused on the strategic position and winning the war before them, as I was now, to place the relay somewhere more prosaic.

The relay had gone into auto-shutdown to protect itself during the flare. The intense radiation had prevented salvage missions from finding her in the past, so she was assumed lost. One of my ever so efficient techs had noticed a re-start query signal from the autonomous relay to another comm station under our control. It was a small, inconspicuous query. It could easily have been missed in the general clutter, ignored or deleted. Instead, the tech had followed up and found this potential treasure.

Any major relay station we could bring back up online would be a significant asset for our network. However, this relay would directly serve Yavin, allowing us to deepen and strengthen Alliance communications while at the same time, make those communications far more secure. I was prepared to pay dearly to get this relay up and running if necessary.

Sky found a convenient docking location and connected. I went across and did a quick walk through to make sure there were no major direct threats. Everything seemed fine. I would have liked to have Shield with me, but he was busy at the New Temple getting my new Eta Vultures online. Sky would have to make a quick run while I worked. Once I sent the all clear, she would be bringing back a team of techs to give the place a more thorough going over.

So, for the first time in a while, I would be on my own for a bit. Hardly scary, no one had been to this system since the relay had gone offline.

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Please help. Thank-you.


	10. Chapter 10

**Legend of the Harp**

 **Episode III: The Crucible**

 **Chapter 10: Along Came a Spider**

*Bounty Hunter Snare, Castanea*

Snare was just finishing rappelling down from her craft and securing herself to one of the very solid tree branches. She was quite good at the task. As a female Harch, she had a number of limbs and was used to moving in three dimensional environments.

Not many Harches left their homeworld. The rest of the galaxy was too different from the webs of home. The values held by most other sentients were too strange and opaque. The food they ate, too unappetizing. However, Snare wanted a chance to see new places, hunt new game. So, Snare had left her homeworld and become a bounty hunter. She had gotten what she wanted. The pile of Credits she had accumulated didn't hurt either.

Snare had found the galactic market for bounty hunters was well developed. There was a lot of competition. It seemed any idiot who could strap on a blaster wanted to call himself a bounty hunter. Even some idiots without a blaster.

To be successful, Snare had realized, she needed to carve out a niche, build a brand. Snare had succeeded. It was now understood that Snare was the best bounty hunter in the galaxy for forest habitat located quarries.

It wasn't a huge niche, but it drew a steady and lucrative income. Of course, Snare hadn't earned this reputation without spending endless hours, days, years in arboreal environments, moving from tree to tree, slowly but steadily tracking her target. The result was always the same.

Snare also knew she depended on her team. She had slowly, but steadily, accumulated a team of other top professionals who were known for their ability to work in a forest canopy. Getting them to join her team meant less competition. It also made her stronger. She was not arrogant enough to believe she was the best at everything, she was good, very good, but not that good. She used the strengths of those on her team to her advantage. No single bounty hunter could ever hope to be as good as she and her team could be. As the members of her team lent her their strengths in the hunt, they also lifted her to greatness.

First among Snare's team was her intended mate, Claw. They had not yet mated, for when Harch mated, the female ate the male. Yes, in the more 'modern' galaxy, there were now ways for a male Harch to fertilize a female Harch without being consumed.

"Perhaps you would like to use the new way to mate so you need not die?" Snare had asked her intended once upon a time when she had, perhaps, imbibed a bit too much blood wine.

"When you are ready to mate," and even in this degenerate new galaxy, mating was always at the female Harch's discretion, "I shall have lived long enough." Claw responded.

It was believed that the male contributed not only his zygotes, but his spiritual virtues to his young. Certainly, as Snare had reached out and used the spike at the tip of one of her arms to stab and eat the newborn of the new way, they seemed far less viable then the young of a strong male Harch who had been consumed in the mating process.

Along with his brutal efficiency as a hunter and effectiveness as an XO, his traditional values were what attracted Snare to her intended. It didn't hurt that he had a very well-rounded thorax as well.

Even as Snare got herself situated on her branch, she could hear Claw giving commands to get the team organized.

Among her other crew was a human clone. As the clone army had been disbanded, a small percentage had been inducted into the new Imperial Military. However, the clone troopers had been subjected to rapid growth techniques. Those techniques made the clones much more cost effective as they could be sent into battle more quickly. Of course, while the clones had been trained and had the bodies of adult men, they were still only eight to ten years old when they were sent into combat. The rapid grow techniques that had been used on the clones, chosen as much for their economy as their effectiveness, had meant that many clones would not age well. A handful of clones were lucky and aged gracefully, the Imperial Military had chosen among those to retain in service. Any rapid aging defect, and regardless of service record or skill set, the clone was cashiered.

Snare's clone was one of the cashiered. His name was Twitch. His left eye twitched relentlessly, hence his nickname. Twitch had been one of the clone army's finest ranger/scouts, a top ARC Trooper. Twitch had also been one the clone army's best snipers.

"Does that twitch effect your aim?" Snare had asked Twitch when they first met.

"Don't shoot with that eye." Twitch replied using an economy of words which was his custom and which Snare appreciated.

Then Twitch had pulled out the sniper configured E-7 rifle that was his preferred weapon and put on a display of long distance accuracy that was almost supernatural. After the shooting demonstration, Twitch had blindfolded himself and done a full disassembly, cleaning and re-assembly of the rifle. Snare had hired him on the spot. A decision she had never regretted. The Imperial Military's loss had been her gain.

With one of her lower left eyes, Snare could see Twitch had already set up in a nearby tree and was scanning the area with his rifle's long-range optical sight.

Nibbs was already pulling away with Snare's ship. Nibbs hadn't been hired because she was so battle worthy herself, but she was reliable, also a good pilot. Experience had taught Snare that bringing her own ship down and providing her quarry with an expensive piece of gear, the ship, to escape her and leave her stranded was a bad idea. So, she had found a pilot who would put them down and then go back up into orbit until called for. She could come back from time to time, as needed, to deliver extra supplies, though that was rare. What was important was that Nibbs would come back when called, she wouldn't wander off with the ship. Nibbs would even come back through blockade and into a firefight as necessary and had done so more than once. Nibbs might go down fast in the bar fights she liked to pick, but she had an unnatural ability to fly and evade which is what she was hired for.

Eventually, Snare would retire and would eat all of her team ending with Claw. Then she would produce her offspring. It seemed the greatest gift and compliment she could offer them.

The Imperials had worried a Sciuridae fugitive was on the planet. A Sciuridae! As if a cowardly Sciuridae warranted such treatment. However, Credits spoke, and the Imperials were speaking loudly. Snare would find the Sciuridae, take the foolish Imperial Credits and move on to the next job.

Snare also knew the Imperials had apparently already sent their own team and someone had interfered and stopped them. That meant there could be more to this job than was explained. That was typical. Snare expected such things and was always cautious.

Within moments of landing, Snare's team came upon the dead troop transport that had interfered with the Imperial transport.

Snare, a good tracker in her own right, had a Canis tracker on her team. The Canis applied his extraordinary sense of scent and his other tracking skills to the situation.

"One survivor from the ship." The Canis reported.

The Canis then led the team on a loop around the ship.

"She stopped here for a bit. Then went…this way." The Canis reported leading them.

They made their way through the undergrowth for a bit when the Canis reported, "A male wearing Imperial gear picked up her trail here."

This was interesting. They hadn't even picked up the Sciuridae's trail yet.

*** And now a word from our sponsor! ***

Please imagine a chorus line of attractive, scantily clad, very fit high steppers in the gender of your choice!

This writer, like the story teller in the market of old, now has a hat out hoping for a small gratuity. There is no obligation and I'm grateful you took a moment to read. However, if my writing has found favor in your eyes, please take a moment to go to:

Pay

Pal

.me

/hemaccabe

and throw in a little something, a dime, a quarter, a dollar, etc.

While I love to write, I do have a spouse and a child and a job and many other claims on my time that don't understand why I would spend so many hours banging on a keyboard. A small tangible return would help smooth the way to allow me to provide many more stories.

Please help. Thank-you.


	11. Chapter 11

**Legend of the Harp**

 **Episode III: The Crucible**

 **Chapter 11: The Hope**

*** Jedi Knight Jors Zaemon, Stygeon Prime, aboard Bearer, above Spire Prison ***

We emerged from a long dark pass just in time to see an octagonally shaped ship insert a team in the fortress.

"Get the droids outside and get the gear in! Buster!" I ordered, perhaps more brusquely then I meant to.

The ship burst into action as the droids raced to the airlock to bring in our gear.

"Get ready to get this bird in the air." I ordered the young Lieutenant in command of the ship as she raced over to find out what was going on.

She raced away, I could hear her ordering into ship's com, "Sound General Quarters! All hands on deck!"

As the gear came in I watched as the octagon-shaped ship's team inserted on a small shuttle to a tiny platform on the side of the prison wall.

I had literally just been considering that platform for insertion when I had seen these interlopers arrive.

The commandoes the shuttle discharged were quickly through the Imperial Storm Trooper guards and inside the facility.

Within minutes, the feeling I had been getting from Mistress Unduli changed. Clearly the interlopers had entered her cell. She was dead! Did the interlopers? No, a moment later I could tell that the presence of Mistress Unduli had been some sort of Force illusion using her corpse and some, possibly Sith, Force trick. It was why I had sensed something had been wrong all along.

Just as I watched the interlopers exfiltrate, somehow getting a large number of local flying creatures to fly interference, the Lieutenant reported, "Ready to lift off."

How had they gotten those flying creatures to help? We had studied all available information on this planet for weeks and had been doing our own observations. We still had no idea that this life form existed, much less that they might be exploited in that way.

"Get us off the ground, follow that other ship." I ordered.

Great this would now turn into my worst discipline, a space battle.

The shuttle docked with the octagonal ship which began to quickly maneuver for a hyperspace jump. They hassled a bit with some TIEs from the planet. Then they were ready to jump.

Just as the octagonal ship was about to jump, I could see they were about to be jumped by a flight of TIE Bombers they clearly didn't know were there.

"Attack those TIE Bombers!" I ordered into comm as I jumped into Bearer's forehead gun.

I didn't know everything about space combat, but I knew those bombers could fire off a slew of torpedoes that would obliterate the little octagonal ship.

We flew straight through the formation of TIE Bombers. I was pleased to get one of the enemy ships myself.

The surviving TIE bombers scattered and started firing wildly. Several others were destroyed by Bearer's other guns.

"Get us out of here!" I ordered as I could already feel the ship moving to jump.

Just as we pulled away, I could feel one Imperial torpedo hit us.

"Damage report?" I requested into comm.

"We were hit several times by blaster fire and took one solid hit from a torpedo. All hits were absorbed by shields." The Lieutenant reported.

"Good. Are we on course?" I asked.

"We are set to make multiple jumps to ensure there is no successful pursuit by our adversaries." The Lieutenant replied.

"All good. Inform me when we get to home system. I'll be in my quarters." I ordered and crawled out of the gun.

I realized I had just been successful for the first time leading a space battle, such as this skirmish had been. I had forgotten to deploy the Vultures. Of course, that might have slowed our exit, or prevented the hits we absorbed. Live and learn.

I got a shower and some sleep. Then I reviewed all the records from the action. The Empire was becoming less popular by the day. The galaxy was used to certain ideas of freedom of democracy. The Empire was making it more and more clear that those freedoms were going away. The Senate was more and more clearly powerless to confront the Emperor and his abuses. There were already rumors the Senate would be dissolved soon.

There were small micro-resistance groups emerging spontaneously nearly everywhere. The octagonal ship had probably represented one of those. The lead on Mistress Unduli had been broadcast wide by renegade Senator Gall Trayvis. We had been playing it cautious, obviously not everyone was.

The mission, rescuing Mistress Unduli, was officially a failure. As I went to my quarters for a shower and to have my clothing refreshed, I considered. On the bright side, we had gotten some useful intel. We would notify all our contacts that the rumors of Mistress Unduli being alive were false. I could now say with some certainty she was dead. Clearly the Sith and the Empire had been using those rumors while defiling her corpse to lure in resistance, particularly Jedi. They wouldn't be able to do that anymore.

Also, we now knew something about at least one more resistance faction. There might have been one or more Jedi in that group. The move with the flying creatures was very Jedi. Storming that platform, moving through the fortress and breaking that cell implied at least one more. Unfortunately, my insight had been focused so completely on Unduli, I'd missed my chance in the moment to try and connect with them. Still, I might have felt something. It was also possible there were no Jedi and they just got lucky. Maybe they left a string of bodies through that prison fighting their way in and out? Maybe they knew about the flying critters from a previous recon and just put out a scent or food that would lure them along? We would have to find out in our copious free time.

Just as I thought that last bit, the Lieutenant comm'ed down, "We are approaching the Rock in Dandoran system."

We would dock. The crew and militia troopers would swap out. I'd gratefully debark LTCR Pumfrey. Bearer would be serviced; a new crew would be put aboard, and I would be off to my next mission.

While Bearer was being serviced, I tried to contact Furry and Fio. I couldn't get through to either. Furry had left a message that he was going to check on some sort of comm relay thing. It wasn't surprising that communications weren't possible. All sorts of things could cause interference. Castanea was way out there and there was some definite crud in the way, still I would have liked some report. I had to try not to be unreasonably overprotective of Fio. It was hard. I left messages for both and moved on to my next job.

It might have made sense to keep the same troops and crew on Bearer. Start building some operational familiarity. However, the need to train our green Harp Fleet personnel was driving us. We'd bring on another crew of squeaky new spacemen and a new troop of militia. I'd get two new ball droids, the other five got handed back. We'd leave Pumfrey and most of the scanning hardware behind and load up some extra bunks. If I was successful on this mission, I'd be bringing back some new personnel.

Furry had been buying warheads for our top of the line torpedoes for a while from a place called "Baetar."

I read the dossier Furry had prepared for me.

The people of Baetar were predominantly human, but another group that had not come from the main lineage of human societies. The Baetar humans tended to be thinner, taller, slightly more olive skinned with dark complexions. Perhaps a related lineage? Ancient records were sparse. Baetar was the only known location where this lineage existed, though some Baetari humans had moved off world and other humans had moved on.

The Baetar civilization was limited to a single system with a young, hot yellow star. There were only limited natural resources. Baetar Prime, the main inhabited world, was dryer, hotter and had heavier gravity than galactic standard. Baetar did have one unusual resource. Probably because it was a particularly ancient civilization, it had a wealth of hyperspace corridors leading to the system. Over 90% of systems in the Known Galaxy had only one corridor. Dandoran had two. Major worlds would have anywhere from a few to maybe half a dozen? Baetar had dozens making her an extremely strategically valuable location.

Baetar had a seat in the Republic's, and now Empire's, Galactic Senate. Unfortunately, Baetar was surrounded by a number of primitive, aggressive non-human civilizations who all desperately wanted to conquer them, maybe because of the location. Notably the large reptilian Mitzri, small reptilian Heeshem, insect-like Laban, the eel-like Rabi and the arachnid Prus among others. All of these civilizations were many times larger than Baetar and, unlike Baetar's lack of natural resources, her neighbors were major players in the Mining Guild holding a large percentage of the galaxy's proven reserves of fuel. This meant Baetar's enemies had many natural allies in the Senate from their Mining Guild associations and fuel wealth.

During the last days of the Republic, Baetar had endured a number of unfair and inaccurate resolutions being passed against them.

One might also note that during the Clone Wars, despite this treatment, Baetar had been a staunch supporter of the Republic, and quietly, the Jedi. Her neighbors had all sided with the Separatists sending vast wealth, supplies and contingents of troops.

Despite this betrayal of the Republic, Baetar's neighbors had been rehabilitated and become staunch supporters of the Emperor in the Senate. This had resulted in Baetar once again finding herself excluded in the Senate and on the wrong side of many wrong-headed resolutions.

Further, the Baetar practiced Republican democracy in their society and had done so for thousands of years. So, they really believed in it. This resulted in some natural antipathy from our new Emperor.

All of this meant Baetar was a top candidate for open rebellion. The problem was that they were one small, isolated society. Open rebellion could mean a fleet of Star Destroyers knocking on their front door. They didn't want to be another Emberlene or Lasan. So, while Baetar had failed to support the Emperor a number of times on the Senate floor, they were not in open rebellion either.

Baetar did have a substantial military. Despite being a small society with limited natural resources, they were a democracy and had an open economy. This meant they punched well above their weight economically. Baetar had also doubled down on education to help each citizen achieve as much as possible and that had paid off. Baetar's economy was strong from many high-tech exports. Baetar had been one of the first societies in the galaxy to have invested heavily in snub fighters. Baetar had a substantial fleet of home grown fighters, the Kfirs, Lavis and Neshers that had won so many battles for them. They also had a ground military with a substantial reputation.

Unfortunately, that's all they had. Aside from a handful of small gunboats and transports they had no capital ships. Bearer was bigger than anything else they had in their fleet. They did have two space fortresses, Suffone and Doram, not as big as the Rock, but well-armed and considerable positions. Still, they had no transfer station or grav tugs. They didn't have the manpower or the money for more.

Unlike many areas of the galaxy that were relatively peaceful, Baetar's history was one of relentless all-out wars with one or more of their neighboring societies. Between the major wars, they were also engaged in a constant low intensity conflict in the surrounding systems. Still, it was a record of the Baetarians outmaneuvering, outfighting and relentlessly defeating their enemies. It had to be, one loss would mean no more Baetar.

It was not surprising that Baetar had developed some sophisticated military technology, most notably, the torpedo warhead which was Furin's preferred choice for his Silver Bullet torpedoes.

Before I had left for Stygeon Prime I had discussed Baetar with Furin.

"When I discovered their situation, I began to reinforce Baetar economically. Rather than pay them in Credits, we send them shipments of fuel, which is difficult for them to acquire. They were paying anywhere between ten and a hundred times galactic average for fuel. I'm shipping the fuel in and trading it with them for near galactic average. I'm also sending in food, raw materials like gravene and dura steel. I'm also acquiring Scoeti armor and Stentor framing for them which I know they're trying to reverse engineer. They are well paid for the warheads." Furin explained.

"So, what do you want from me?" I asked.

"We need to get them to increase warhead production and sell us more." Furry answered.

"Then why send me, you must have a trade negotiator or someone we could send for such a minor job?" I asked a bit annoyed to be sent on a simple trade mission when I was so busy.

"In addition to warheads, we have something more important we want acquire from Baetar." Furry replied.

"Important enough that I should go?" I replied a bit skeptically. It always seemed Furry was underestimating just how busy I was.

"Yes," Furry replied, "We're always short personnel. We have the Credits to expand the fleet, but not the ships and the manpower. I'm constantly trying to recruit new help."

"What do you have in mind?" I asked.

"Baetar is in a bad position. They don't like the current galactic situation, but if the Empire openly supported their neighbors, they would likely be overrun. Since their neighbors have promised, repeatedly, to massacre every man, woman and child in the system, they must be cautious. So open rebellion is out. However, they would like to oppose the Emperor more vigorously. Also, they know the Emperor might have his Imperial Fleet support their enemies more covertly, which could still be the end for them. They can't oppose the Emperor openly as that would be the end for them. They can't let the Emperor stay either, since that could be the end for them as well. So, they should want to oppose the Emperor clandestinely very much."

"So, what does this have to do with us?" I continued to probe, hoping Furin would get to the point.

"If a group of Baetarians decided, on their own, plausibly deniably by their government, to join our cause, perhaps as independent mercenaries, we could solve each other's problems. They could provide fighter pilots which would add immeasurably to our efforts and we would help give the Emperor better things to worry about than Baetar."

"So, you want me to go there and recruit fighter pilots?"

"Baetar's pilots are some of the best in the galaxy. I want at least a squadron's worth. They can fight for us directly and, between battles, train our green kids."

"Anything else?" I asked.

"I want Gi Ora. He's their best. If he comes, he'll bring other experienced, top quality, pilots with him. If he doesn't come, they'll send us a bunch of much less useful green recruits."

"So, you want me to go to this place that is under constant military threat of annihilation, is completely dependant on their fleet of snub fighters and convince them to give up a squadron's worth of their best pilots. Just how am I supposed to convince them of that?"

"I'm already paying them quite a bit, and as I said before, it's in their long term best interest as well. That should be enough. However, they'll want our next Lola."

"Yeah, we've been waiting forever for that boat and already have jobs lined up for it. Should we really give it up?"

"If you have to, give them the Lola." Furin reaffirmed.

"Don't we need that Lola?"

"We can build another and think, where will that ship be? What will it be doing?"

It was a rhetorical question. The ship would be putting a crimp in the Emperor's plans, but with someone else's crew aboard and being paid on someone else's Credit. We'd get the fighter pilots we needed.

So as preparations were completed, we launched for Baetar.

*** And now a word from our sponsor! ***

Please imagine a chorus line of attractive, scantily clad, very fit high steppers in the gender of your choice!

This writer, like the story teller in the market of old, now has a hat out hoping for a small gratuity. There is no obligation and I'm grateful you took a moment to read. However, if my writing has found favor in your eyes, please take a moment to go to:

Pay

Pal

.me

/hemaccabe

and throw in a little something, a dime, a quarter, a dollar, etc.

While I love to write, I do have a spouse and a child and a job and many other claims on my time that don't understand why I would spend so many hours banging on a keyboard. A small tangible return would help smooth the way to allow me to provide many more stories.

Please help. Thank-you.


	12. Chapter 12

**Legend of the Harp**

 **Episode III: The Crucible**

 **Chapter 12: One Way or Another**

*** Bounty Hunter Mahe Jiru, Relay Station ***

Patience had finally paid off. The quarry had finally been a bit too glib with his communications. I had learned on the Sultoon platform it might be a bit too bold to go for both quarries at once. It was more convenient, but the level of risk was too high. The other reason against going for them separately was the potential for warning the second quarry. In this case, that concern was no longer operative as they had both now clearly been warned.

The clear play was to go for the weaker quarry. That was clearly the Hero of Plynth. Zaemon had been one of the best commanders the Order and Republic had. On the platform, he had clearly shown he was the better hand with a saber. Kazan, on the other hand, had two double bladed weapons. What an obviously overcompensating dilettante he must be. I would take Kazan, then I would be on to Zaemon. Zaemon was still formidable but would be weakened by Kazan's loss.

I got to the relay ahead of Kazan, found a quiet place to stash my ship and stayed on very low power mode.

That fancy black yacht of Kazan's showed up and did a loop around the relay. Clearly, they hadn't noticed me as they docked and put Kazan aboard. Then the yacht left Kazan there all alone.

*** Jedi Knight Furin Kazan, Relay Station ***

I had just finished unloading the gear. It would take many cases of expensive tools and scanners just to do a real survey. Then once the survey was done, many more to begin to effect even the smallest repairs. I had also brought cases with a selection of the most likely needed spare parts. It was a lot more physical work than I had done in some time. Luckily, that didn't bother me anymore…

"See Dear, there are advantages." Sky's voice once again chimed in my head.

"Yes, there are, and I'll miss you. Come back as soon as you can Love."

"Of course." She replied with a smile and was away.

I took some time to rearrange my gear. I would hardly need the style and combat capabilities of my regular things. On the other hand, a good work jump suit would not be out of order.

Yes, my current physiology could withstand quite a bit of insult but working in this station was still not good for me. I could shrug off a certain amount of microscopic dirt and grime, though escorting such pollutants out of my system was a major activity for the small metallic nano particles that made up my body. Further, there could be radiation or particularly toxic substances that would be damaging to me in the Relay's poorly maintained environment. Better safe than sorry.

Just as I was finishing gearing up I heard a voice from behind, "Welcome aboard the relay."

I immediately whipped around drawing my sabers. Yes, I still had my sabers on my person. Feeling safe was one thing, leaving one's sabers behind was another. A Jedi's light saber is his life.

It was the Nyani Jedi Master, Sa Tasta Burana. His blade was already deployed.

"Why are you doing this? You are a Jedi Master. You should be joining us, leading us?" I asked completely confused by his behavior.

"The Order is gone. The Jedi are no more. I am no longer a Jedi Master and you are no more than another quarry."

"Please don't do this. The Jedi still live…" I began but he was upon me.

Our blades met, then met again. One would think, with four blades to his one, with all the sparring and training I had been doing, with all the advantages of my new physique, I should have been far more than a match for him.

However, as with Jors, with only a single blade, Burana still had the advantage. He forced me back and back again. I tried to wrong step him, but he anticipated and instead attacked me from the other side. This put me at a disadvantage. I clawed to regain some position, but he found an opening.

In a split second, his blade stabbed into me and while I was stunned, he pulled the blade back out, then spun around and cut me in half.

It hurt. A lot. Just because my body could now knit itself back together did not mean being cut in half was any less painful. It also meant that a substantial amount of the stuff that was my body had just been annihilated. Which made me that much weaker and stupider.

Burana stopped moving, obviously surprised by my response. I should have been so much gore on the floor. Instead, as I pulled myself back together, I ran.

It took Burana some time to pursue. Even though we could both use the Force to enhance our speed, he was a Nyani and I was a heavily physically enhanced human. While a typical Nyani will have better upper body strength and can brachiate far better than a typical human, they were shorter and slower on foot. Without the Force, there were few humans who could keep up with me. In fact, there were few ground vehicles that could keep up with me. I ran.

When I had enough distance, I stashed all the gear I had except my sabers and comm link. The comm link was useless now, it was short range and there was no long range, i.e. interstellar distances, repeater present, well, none functional. However, if help arrived, it would be good to be able to communicate with them.

Looking at my options, I became a wall brace. Wall braces were interspersed along the walls. I would shorten the distance between wall braces, a practiced eye looking for it might notice, but it was the best I could do on short notice.

A second after I had found my wall perch, Burana ran by as fast as his Nyani legs could carry him. Clearly, he had missed me. Just as clearly, I would not prevail in direct combat. This was a waiting game. Eventually, help would come for me. I just had to evade long enough for help to arrive.

*** And now a word from our sponsor! ***

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Please help. Thank-you.


	13. Chapter 13

**Legend of the Harp**

 **Episode III: The Crucible**

 **Chapter 13: I Drove All Night**

*** Jedi Padawan Fio Brown, Castanea ***

I put up my hands while I stood up slowly and turned around. There was an Imperial trooper wearing scout armor. He had lost his helmet, but he was holding his E-11 rifle very steady. Pointed at me.

It was really the easiest thing. I reached out and realized he was alone. Then I picked him up with the Force, turning him slightly to the left so the panic shot he fired went off into the distance, then swung him bodily to the right into a tree, hard.

That took the fight right out of him.

I walked up to his still disoriented person and took the rifle. It was good to have a rifle again. Not as nice as my tricked-out B-300, but better than nothing. As the trooper came back to himself, I worked the action, made sure it was charged ready to fire.

"Hey!" He said.

"I suppose you're my prisoner now." I said.

"How'd you do that?" The trooper asked in an outraged voice.

He was kind of cute when he was angry.

"Magic," I replied and then continued, "on your feet, we have a long way to go."

I put his own binders on his wrists, pocketing the keys. Then took his extra power packs for the rifle and put them on my own belt.

"Let's move." I said, and we began to move further into the forest.

I trusted the Force and I found places to climb and places to walk. We began to move over the bark, mossy undergrowth and vines that defined this environment. Slowly, we made our way through the three-dimensional maze that was this world's surface. We would go for several hours. Then stop, rest and eat. I would eat my rations sparingly and drink from my canteen. I trusted the Force and it always showed me where to put a foot down for good traction, where there would be a crack that would twist my ankle, which vine would hold my weight. The Force also always told me when my Imperial captive was getting ready to try something. Just before he would make his move, I'd give him a kick, or a smack with the rifle butt or pull his feet out from under him with the Force.

I could feel what was in his head. I could feel the anger. I could feel his sense of honor which obligated him to the Empire. But there something else growing in there, it was strange, and I had no idea what it was.

After several periods of movement, as we stopped to rest and eat rations, he spoke.

"So, you're a rebel?" He asked, with a tone that sounded like rebel was worse than the lowest slime rat.

"I'm Harp Militia." I replied.

"What's that?" He asked.

"Rebels I suppose. We don't much care for the Empire. We're still loyal to the Republic and hope for her return." I replied.

"The Empire will rule forever!" He said quoting Imperial propaganda with more determination than he felt.

"I guess one of us in trouble then." I replied letting our relative positions argue my point and felt the uncertainty inside him grow.

After a moment, I asked, "What's your name?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"I suppose I could just keep calling you 'loser,' but I thought a name would be better." I replied.

"I'll tell you mine when you tell me yours!" He said, more as a challenge than a question.

"Fine, my name is Fio." I replied nonchalantly.

That took him back. He was expecting me to hide my name, as if I was ashamed of being a rebel, fearful.

After a moment in which he seemed surprised and taken aback he replied, "Umm, I suppose my name is Sei Gal."

That was the first time I really looked at him. He was tall, almost two meters. He had broad shoulders. He was human, but his skin had an olive cast. His hair was black as night. Still he had amazing blue eyes.

I shook myself away from looking at him. He was a prisoner. That's all. Still, considering I was using the Force, which among other things added strength to my limbs and felt like a constant wind at my back, he was keeping up. With his wrists bound.

I had moved his wrists to the front from the back. I knew I wouldn't have much trouble keeping him in line and he needed to eat. It also helped him hang on and climb as necessary.

I looked at his gear.

"That scout armor is powered isn't it, gives you extra strength?" I asked.

"Yes." He replied after thinking.

"Do you have a long range comm link?"

"No," and I knew he was telling the truth.

"Where's the power cell?"

"On my back."

I spun him around and saw that this armor did have a more pronounced power pack on his back than a standard trooper's.

"Great. It will help you keep up."

That explained the little mechanical wheezes I'd been hearing from the suit.

After my chronometer told me we had been going 24 hours, I stopped when we found a relatively large flat spot.

I manually turned off his armor, then rebound his hands behind his back, attaching him to a stout branch. I put a bag over his head and bound his ankles together with a simple tie.

"Try to get some sleep." I told him as I bound him up. He was out within seconds.

I got some sleep too and was up before him. I undid his bindings in reverse order. We ate and were underway again.

We were gaining substantial altitude. The previous day, while crossing several klicks of horizontal distance, I would guess we'd gained about 300 meters of altitude.

Today's hike was even more steep. Sei kept the pace. My cold tired muscles kept pushing like they had taught us in Survival School.

At the end of the second 24-hour period of hiking, the power supply on Sei's suit gave out. We had no way to charge it.

We put as much of Sei's gear, particularly rations, into his pack. The armor, which was now dead weight, we stripped off and dumped, except for his boots.

That left Sei in his black skin tights. I noticed the armor had hidden that he was extremely well put together. Including a substantial endowment.

I pulled my head away again and got him settled for the night. Once again, he was out within seconds.

Sei couldn't maintain the same pace the next day. I expected that. I was also going through my canteen capsules quickly and had little in the way of other rations. I drank a hot purple an'nav. Not so pleasant, but I needed the carbs and the heat.

After the fifth day, both of us had no solid rations. As we came up off the planet's floor, the air was getting dryer. And colder. My canteen had to work harder to fill. I split the water the canteen evenly with Sei, but he was bigger and needed more. We were both cold, wet and thirsty.

To make time pass we talked. Sei told me of the canyons of Akiva, his homeworld.

"The water is so pure and sweet. My family had a small farmstead in the wilderness. Some agriculture, some hunting and gathering. We'd learned where to look for what the forest would give. Then we'd keep what we needed and sell the rest in the market."

I told him about picnics with my Mom. Collecting flowers for decorations and sachets of scent. In a world dominated by the smell of oaf bird rendering, good scents were much desired.

"So why did you join the Empire?" I finally asked, my curiosity getting the better of me.

It took Sei a while, but he finally answered. "When I was small child, the Separatists occupied Akiva. They made things … bad. The Republic came and drove the Separatist army out. We were being kept as hostages and the Separatists had already given the order for all of us to be killed. A Jedi came and rescued us. I remembered the army of the Republic, in their proud white armor.

"When I grew up, we had a good life, but I wanted to see some of the galaxy. My parents made a few Credits, but it would never be enough to send me into space. My grades would never be good enough to take me away on scholarship."

My heart moved as a pang of sympathy, created by shared experience, went through me.

"Then came the chance to join the Imperial army. It seemed like a chance to pay back the debt of my childhood. To wear the proud white armor. Maybe go help other people in trouble like we had been. The chance to get off world and see a bit of the galaxy was interesting too. There was also the possibility of scholarships. The bonus for completion of service might have helped me set up my own place."

I realized he was telling me the truth, but I still couldn't help myself from blurting out, "But the Empire killed the Republic. They murdered all the Jedi. The Harp Militia is fighting to bring the Republic back. Your mission here was to hunt down and murder one of the last remaining Jedi."

Sei's face dropped. I realized I had ruined the moment of openness we had found with my sudden criticism.

I also realized that while I wore a camouflage poncho on my upper body over my armor, as he followed me all day, Sei had an excellent view of my, only covered by skin tight thermals, thighs and rear end. I also noticed that other strange feeling in his head was still growing.

I wondered when or if someone would notice I had gone missing.

I would start to try various local plants and mosses. Some felt wrong and I left them, some felt okay, so I added them to my canteen. I also looked for bugs the same way. On day six I caught a small slimy crawling thing I was disappointed to find was okay, so I sliced it up and stewed it in my canteen. It tasted as bad as it had looked, but it didn't poison us. I still had some capsules left, but I was trying to husband my resources.

On day nine we actually caught sight of Jedi Knight Chatterjee. Unfortunately, she also caught sight of us and, before I had chance to utter a single word, her furred hide was gone. She moved fast in this environment.

I realized I would need to have another conversation with Sei. I removed his binders.

"So far no one has come looking for you and no one has come looking for me. Let's make a deal. If your people come looking, if you want, I'll let you go back to them. Just don't betray us. If my people come first, you're welcome to come, but no one will force you. If you want to stay here, stay. I'll even see if I can get them to leave you with some rations and survival gear. In exchange, I ask for a truce. Until that happens, we work together to survive. What do you say?"

It made sense. Sei had long run out of rations. He was surviving on what I scrounged up and my canteen water. Sei, apparently rational, nodded.

It took us another day to get close to her. A long, frustrating, extra day.

"Can I trust you to help?" I asked Sei.

He gave me a funny look. Then, with that funny feeling swirling behind his eyes, he said, "Yes."

"I want you to wait for 20 minutes. Then walk down that limb."

"Okay."

I used the time I left him behind to circle around as quietly as I could.

Then Sei came up that branch, on what was now the far side of Jedi Knight Chatterjee, who broke and came straight at me.

I grabbed Jedi Knight Chatterjee with the Force and lifted her into the air. She screamed as her limbs thrashed the air trying to find purchase. I kept focused.

After a few moments, Jedi Knight Chatterjee went limp. I could tell she was ready to listen.

"Jedi Knight Chatterjee, I am Padawan Fio. I've been sent here to rescue you."

Jedi Knight Chatterjee's voice cracked as she asked, "Truly?"

"Yes Mistress." I answered, remembering the protocol Master Kazan had been drilling into me. I'd thought the protocol pointless, why did just the three of us need it? Now I knew.

"I am so thirsty." Jedi Knight Chatterjee said.

I gave her my canteen. She sipped up it's contents.

"When can we leave?" Jedi Knight Chatterjee asked.

"I'm afraid I must report that my vessel has been rendered inoperable. I'm hoping that a rescue mission should be coming shortly." I explained.

"Oh." Jedi Knight Chatterjee replied. Clearly disappointed.

"I've already been gone for over 11 standard days. I can't imagine it will take much longer."

Oh, how wrong I would be.

I continued to scrounge. In the drier air of the higher level we perched at, the canteen's condenser had to work long and hard to fill. Without my constant movement to recharge it, it could not maintain the pace. Luckily, I found some places where one could get water, but it was never enough.

"We could descend below the mist line." I suggested to Jedi Knight Chatterjee.

"If we do, the moisture will soak my fur and your thermal suits. Then we will freeze to death." She replied.

She tried to help me with scrounging, Sei did too. They didn't find as much as me, but she was a Jedi and, as he learned what to look for, Sei's childhood clearly came back. We got a little hungrier and thirstier every day, but we were doing everything we could to stretch it out.

One day blurred into the next. Each night we slept, exhausted by the combination of effort and hunger. I now dreamed of catching another slimy tree thing.

One evening, after everyone else was asleep, I tried to catch 40 winks too, but I kept feeling uneasy. Sei was out like a light. What was the problem? Was there some native predator? I reached out with my feelings.

I didn't have to reach far. There was something made of hate, anger and endless unfillable greed and it was hunting for us. Worse, it was getting closer. Fast.

I got the other two up, "We need to move, stay quiet."

"Is the Empire here?" Sei whispered, demanding.

"That's not the Empire, it's something much worse. If they catch us, I'm sure you'll be just as dead." I replied.

With that we all began moving.

As we moved, we still scrounged, but having to move away from pursuit meant we could scrounge that much less. So, we got hungrier faster. Also, I could feel that they were slowly, but steadily, closing the distance. Where in the bleeding nebula was Dodger!

*** And now a word from our sponsor! ***

Please imagine a chorus line of attractive, scantily clad, very fit high steppers in the gender of your choice!

This writer, like the story teller in the market of old, now has a hat out hoping for a small gratuity. There is no obligation and I'm grateful you took a moment to read. However, if my writing has found favor in your eyes, please take a moment to go to:

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While I love to write, I do have a spouse and a child and a job and many other claims on my time that don't understand why I would spend so many hours banging on a keyboard. A small tangible return would help smooth the way to allow me to provide many more stories.

Please help. Thank-you.


	14. Chapter 14

**Legend of the Harp**

 **Episode III: The Crucible**

 **Chapter 14: We Walked In The Sun**

*** Jedi Knight Jors Zaemon, above Baetar Prime ***

We had the proper documents. Assurances had been given in both directions prior to our departure from Dandoran. However, it was taking a long time to get landing clearance.

I looked at the young Lieutenant in command and told him, "Just keep working on it."

It was frustrating, but it made sense. Baetar needed to take every possible precaution. In Baetar's living memory, ships like ours had arrived and been allowed to land, then defying all diplomatic norms, all of the Galactic Conventions and all of basic decency, disgorged groups of terrorist commandos and detonated themselves. Specifically targeting civilians, which was another violation of the Galactic Conventions. One such incident had been aimed at a large elementary school.

So, we went through the signs and counter signs. Eventually, we also accepted the scan crew and local pilot. Once the scan crew gave their okay, we were finally allowed to land.

I had expected to land someplace dark and grim. The dossier had informed me the main spaceport of Baetar was located on a coastal plain near their largest city and economic capital, Watchtower of Spring. Still, as we landed, I was surprised to find myself approaching a beautiful, tropical coastal port that would give Elysia a run for her money.

I came down the lift alone to be greeted by a woman wearing a very high-ranking uniform. I noted the uniform, simple and practical, was more like what most militaries would issue for office work, not a dress uniform. I made note that her uniform included a long skirt. Behind her were two troopers who looked well equipped, very capable and well-armed.

"Welcome to Baetar Master Dodger." She greeted me with a smile, then continued, "I am Chief of Staff Mal Basyah."

"Very nice to meet you." I replied.

I had worn non-descript clothing that was supposed to make me look like a modestly prosperous galactic business man.

"I have a speeder car prepared, we can repair somewhere and have our discussion." She continued.

"Seems like a good idea." I replied.

We got into a nice car which whisked us off the tarmac to a cosmopolitan looking expressway that ran along the beach. I noticed there was a car before us and one behind. It wouldn't surprise me to find out there were fighters discreetly in the air above.

We parked at a spot along the beach with a long wooden boardwalk. She led us out along the boardwalk. I was surprised to see people out and about enjoying themselves. They were mostly human, but of every size, shape and color I had ever heard of humans being. I also noticed the heavy gravity, it was literally a drag, but I was fit so I could stand it.

Considering all the security, I had been expecting to be taken to some deep armorcrete bunker. Instead we came to an open café deck overlooking the beach and the cerulean ocean beyond. Chief of Staff, a rank I knew meant she was the highest-ranking officer in the Baetar military, Basyah ordered from an actual human waiter and they brought us bread that was thin and crispy, a bowl of olive oil and a bottle of wine. The waiter opened the bottle and poured into the provided glasses.

Chief of Staff Basyah lifted a glass and I reciprocated, then we toasted, "To a good conclusion to our talks."

We clinked glasses and I replied, "Agreed."

We sipped the wine. I'm not a wine expert, but it seemed like the sort that would go for several hundred Credit's a bottle in the galactic marketplace.

I looked around and began to say, "I'm surprised…"

Only to be interrupted, "…that we're not meeting in some sort of bunker?"

"Yes."

"We know the identities of all enemy agents on planet. We let it slip that there would be a test firing for a new fighter engine today. The test firing will happen at a base in the far frozen north. The base's amenities are very pleasant. Unfortunately, the only nearby amenities for civilians are very expensive and unpleasant. It may take days before the much-delayed firing occurs. It may not happen at all. At which point transportation from that site may be delayed by weather. Several people who stay at those difficult accommodations may come home with very painful and unpleasant digestive ailments.

"We will have to adjourn eventually, but I haven't had lunch, and this seemed like a nice way to start."

Impressed I replied, "I'm grateful you took the time."

Apparently, one ate the delicious bread after dipping it in the amazing oil. With the wine, it was a very pleasant meal.

We then repaired to an office building, not a bunker, and began our discussions.

After some talk, some of which was attended remotely by Prime Minister Baru Zak, I got down to brass tacks, "In further consideration of the many things we provide for you, we want expanded delivery of torpedo warheads. We're ready to invest to help you expand production and what should be good paying jobs. We also want 24 of your best pilots, among them Gi Ora, to come join our fight. They would provide training, but also be called on to fight when necessary. It goes without saying that they would still be furthering your interests."

"You ask quite a steep price." Prime Minister Baru Zak replied.

"As you know, their presence in the Harp Fleet would be very much to your advantage. It would give you the opportunity to address long term strategic concerns in a far more direct way than you currently have. Even if it did not, we have provided and will continue to provide aid that has great strategic value." I responded, restating a position I had already made several times.

"Yes, but it would also weaken our immediate strategic readiness. We would be far weaker if we suffered a direct attack. I defer to you, Chief of Staff Basyah, is there anything we could receive that would balance this immediate loss?"

That was new.

Chief of Staff Basyah replied, "It has come to our attention that the Harp Fleet is producing their own capital ships. In particular, one class of ship you refer to as the 'Lola Sayu' class. In fact, we believe you have one under construction right now. If we could acquire that ship, it would improve our strategic posture in many ways. This could balance the loss of pilots."

So, there it was. I had to reply.

"That ship is quite a high price. Further, we have plans and missions already scheduled for that ship. Perhaps we could discuss further fuel deliveries?" I tried.

Chief of Staff Basyah replied once again, "While additional fuel supplies would always be useful, to balance the loss of a squadron of pilots we would need the ship."

We discussed it back and forth several more times, but that was their story and they were sticking to it.

"I think we should adjourn for the evening. Perhaps some new insight will be available tomorrow." I suggested.

They agreed. I was taken back to Bearer. I tried to contact Furry and Fio but got nowhere. I didn't want to give up the ship. Furry had felt it was acceptable, but it would be my troops who lost critical support by her absence.

The next day, Chief of Staff Basyah took me by speeder to the planetary capital, "Gift of Peace."

"I will leave you in capable hands." She had said as she left me to go into the Defense Ministry Headquarters. I had sympathy for her. The Harp had substantial forces under arms at this point. Probably more than 90% of Republic member governments. However, one area where we were relatively weak was size of ground forces. We had three battalions under arms. A government might have tens of thousands of troops. There were governments that had millions of troops under arms.

The exact size of Baetar's ground forces was a closely guarded secret, but they likely had somewhere around 100,000 troops. One reason Baetar's ground forces were difficult to estimate was because they had a relatively small core of professional troops, but a well-developed system of reserves. Nearly every citizen was conscripted into military service for three years when they reached the age of their majority. After the three years, the veterans remained available as reserves. In a matter of hours, the reserves could be mustered for service, multiplying the size of Baetar's available forces several times.

That meant Chief of Staff Basyah had a huge job managing this massive organization. She had already given me a remarkable amount of her time. Managing The Harp's tiny army was several full-time jobs. I could only imagine the mountains of work that had accumulated for Basyah as she played hooky with me.

So that left the question of into whose capable hands I would be left?

I didn't have to wonder long. Prime Minister Bar Zak got into the speeder from the other side.

"While we both consider our positions in the current discussion, I thought it might be pleasant and useful to give you a tour of our eternal capital city."

I couldn't ask for a better guide. In the days before the Clone Wars, a Jedi was always considered an important dignitary. It would not be uncommon for a Jedi on a mission to meet with the leaders of member governments, be squired about, to be treated as a VIP.

Still, this was new for me. I had been a Temple Guard. My duties had not included being squired about as a VIP. Then, my time as a military leader involved mostly eating cold rations from a can with a knife, not hobnobbing about with the leaders of societies. My tuition in the classics and the manners that had been beaten into me as a Padawan once again paid dividends.

The tour was amazing. Gift of Peace was an ancient city, built from quarried rock. Clearly it had been updated and living conditions were completely modern, but the mixture of ancient and modern was surprisingly appealing.

During the tour, I noticed a very mixed looking crowd of humans, which was an unusual sight in the galaxy. Most human societies stayed within distinct ranges of color, size and shape. My briefing documents had indicated that Baetar was the same, but clearly, she wasn't.

The Prime Minister must have noticed my look because he asked, "Why do you look so puzzled?"

"I didn't expect the people here to be so, so multi chromatic?" I admitted.

"Ah, that is a common misconception. The Baetari people were driven from this planet by our neighbors approximately a thousand years ago. All the Baetari who couldn't flee were murdered. Three hundred and sixty years ago, a movement arose among the exiled Baetari, who had generally suffered great discrimination wherever they were tolerated, to return to our homeworld and take it back.

"Against all odds, we succeeded. Baetari came from every corner of the galaxy to return home. When we returned, we found many Baetari had acquired the colors of their exile. Still, all are welcome.

"Most of our neighbor's claims to the planet and system are based on this period of occupation. By their belief system, the method of acquisition does not diminish their claims, though they will not honor our claims made on the same basis. Further, they are unable to accept that having held the system, they must now relinquish it, though they expect we will.

"Unfortunately, this means we must be vigilant. Based on our neighbor's past actions and current rhetoric, we would have to assume they would again massacre every man, woman and child should they ever reconquer us. The defense of this world is a sacred trust."

I had seen my share of massacres during the Clone Wars. I don't know how many times we would be hearing the darling of the galactic media, Count Dooku, spout off some sort of ever so idealistic prose over the Holonews, while we would be watching his troops clearly sent out with orders to massacre another group of helpless civilians. Knowing what had happened at the Temple. How every Jedi, even children, even non-Jedi support, had been savagely cut down, made the story of Baetar even more difficult to ignore.

The Prime Minister had been leading me on foot. Most of the ancient center of Gift of Peace had been destroyed during the occupation. Since liberation, the historic central city had been rebuilt with the greatest effort to respect the ancient structures and holy shrines, while making sure they had included modern amenities. They had even used the same gold sandstone.

The Prime Minister, after spending a few hours pointing out various notable sights, took me to an attractive central plaza. There were all the things one would expect. Old people sat around gardens and discussed what old people do. Mothers moved prams with infants while small children ran about playing, their shrieks of laughter echoing on the stone walls from time to time. He led me to a stand that had the very pleasant smell of roasting meat.

"This is a local delicacy and I thought you might be getting hungry."

The shop owner quickly provided us each with a sandwich comprised of a round piece of flatbread rolled up having been filled with roasted meat, vegetables, fried potatoes and a variety of sauces. It was delicious. PM Zak and I took our sandwiches to a small nearby table, protected from the fierce sun by a pleasant tree. We sat there eating our sandwiches, accompanied by small, ice cold bottles of some very pleasant small ale, while we both enjoyed the pageant of life, happily lived, playing out before us.

I realized that this was another bond between us. The Prime Minister and I both spent our lives trying to create this scene against relentless opposition. Relentless opposition that, as it turned out, could only wait till we consumed most, but not all our sandwiches.

A klaxon went off and the people responded in a quick, but orderly manner, to evacuate the plaza.

PM Zak jumped up, "That's an air raid siren. I have to get to my office. I'll have you taken back to your ship."

With that, PM Zak was up and away, and his speeder whisked me back to Bearer, still waiting for me at the Watchtower of Spring's spaceport.

When I boarded, the Lieutenant welcomed me with a brief salute.

"What's the situation?" I asked brusquely.

"Enemy fleets have emerged from hyperspace into the system. The Baetari forces are deploying to meet them. They are hopelessly outnumbered."

"Imperial forces?"

"No, Baetar's traditional enemies, but in numbers never before seen."

"Get this ship off the ground." I ordered.

As Bearer lifted off the ground, I tried to comm back to Furin, there was no reply. We were being jammed. I comm'ed down to Chief of Staff Mal Basyah.

She answered more quickly than I expected.

"We're a bit busy right now you know."

"Yes, I wanted you to pass something onto your troops, if they see my ship or any other Harp ships, don't to shoot us down. We'll do what we can."

"Oh," clearly she had not been expecting my offer, "we appreciate the help. We can definitely use it."

"What's going on? Why is this enemy force so much worse?" I asked.

"Historically, they have never come in these numbers. Worse, they have always come in capital ships without snub fighter support. It was our pilots against their cruisers. This time, they have massive fighter screens as well. It's not yet clear if we will be able to stop them."

"I see. Let us know what we can do to help."

As I said that, I was also watching screens showing the tactical situation. I was aware a large force of Baetari fighters were already moving out toward a group of invading vessels.

Why had I made the snap decision to help them? They were a key Harp ally, yes, but we had let others like Emberlene burn. I would be taking risks and committing our resources without any discussion. People would die.

I could make a solid argument for the tactical and strategic value of action right now, but that really wasn't why I was doing what I was doing. Part of being a Jedi is knowing the difference between right and wrong, having a moral and ethical center. I didn't do what I did, Jedi were not supposed to do what we did, because we flipped a coin and picked a side. Our choices were supposed to reflect time honored moral and ethical values.

The Baetari were just trying to live their lives on their own planet. Their enemies sought to do things which were a relentless series of abominations. There was a right and wrong here. I would commit to it.

*** And now a word from our sponsor! ***

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This writer, like the story teller in the market of old, now has a hat out hoping for a small gratuity. There is no obligation and I'm grateful you took a moment to read. However, if my writing has found favor in your eyes, please take a moment to go to:

Pay

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and throw in a little something, a dime, a quarter, a dollar, etc.

While I love to write, I do have a spouse and a child and a job and many other claims on my time that don't understand why I would spend so many hours banging on a keyboard. A small tangible return would help smooth the way to allow me to provide many more stories.

Please help. Thank-you.


	15. Chapter 15

**Legend of the Harp**

 **Episode III: The Crucible**

 **Chapter 15: Can You Hear Me Running**

*** Jedi Knight Furin Kazan, Relay Station ***

I maintained as a wall brace. As I did, I took stock of my situation. My body was typically made up of 71 to 75 liters of nano-particles. The blows I had sustained had annihilated 4.78 liters of my being. This wasn't pleasant, but it wasn't critical either. On the positive side, unlike the cells and organs of a conventional being, I could reassign my nano-particles immediately to whatever task was required.

Unlike a normal human who has about 100 billion brain cells, many of which are not functioning at any given moment, every nano-particle in my body could be part of the conversation. That meant I had two orders of magnitude more mental processing power available at any given moment. Further, my nano-particles were connected by speed of light in matter superconductors, not the relatively slow electro-chemical processes a human and most organic brains depended on.

Unfortunately, that didn't mean I was some super genius. Part of the transfer is that my 100 billion neuron network of personality had been transferred to this new body. Mostly, I still had the brains I was born with. I had immediately noticed my memory was now perfect. I could hold together and manage much larger ideas than I had before. For example, I could tell you where every Credit of the Harp's assets were, moment by moment. It helped me grind through the relentless pile of documents that never stopped accumulating far faster than I had before. Also, I no longer really slept or had the need.

Still, while one might think, being a Jedi and all, I would be the dominant party in my partnership with Sky. One would be wrong. Sky had other depths. She had explained, in that non-verbal communication that we almost always engaged in when she was nearby, that, as time went on, my personality would expand to use more of my available mental horsepower. Further, while the Order had seen to it that, by the standards of the galaxy, I was well educated, Sky was well beyond that.

I couldn't be sure, but I got the impression that Sky wasn't 50 or 60 years old, she was thousands. She had likely absorbed and accumulated most of the recorded media of her homeworld. In many ways, to her, I likely still seemed like a child. Generally, she was gracious about it and didn't flaunt her depths.

One way her capabilities showed was as a pilot. One would think, once again, being a Jedi I'd be able to handle her. One would be wrong. Most pilots demonstrated their two-dimensional thinking by orienting their craft to planetside as down and space as up. They applied thrust and maneuvered.

Sky was aware of every drop of gravity, every advantage of orbit, every object in the area, their vectors and how they interacted. Revenge's orientation would have nothing to do with the location of planetary bodies and would reflect her goals of achieving maximum advantage. She would let me operate the cannon while I was present, but one felt that had more to do with her being charitable than needing the help. It was like she was a mother piloting the family speeder home and she was letting her toddler, me, operate my play controls to feel important.

When I wasn't present, Sky had no trouble operating the guns as well. When I had watched her fire, it was scary because she never missed. I don't mean she would fire spreads and hit her targets, I mean she would fire once and it would hit. If the target wasn't destroyed it was because it was too big, and it's shields too deep to be broken in a single shot.

Back to the moment as my mind wandered, wondering where Sky was now.

I could lose some of my body and continue, but every time I lost more, I became weaker, my physical strength depended on the whole. I also lost part of my thinking and memory. Since I had a lot of spare, that wasn't so bad. Sky would suffer more from an equivalent loss as she used a lot more of herself. If I lost much more, it could become a problem. There was also the chamber in the center of my being where my Kyber crystal resided. If Burana got that, I might melt, or detonate.

Luckily though, I was doing a very passable imitation of a wall brace and this relay was a big place, so he was having a tough time finding me.

I relaxed. I shouldn't have. Because Burana may have rejected the Order and the Code, but he could still use the Force.

Burana stalked by me for what was the third time in 42.39 hours. As I expected him to saunter by and keep going, he swung about and, without warning, cut me in half. Again.

I thought nothing could hurt more than that the first time. I was wrong.

I don't know how I did it, but I came to myself and fled again before he could back sweep.

I fled for my life, that much weaker than I had been a moment before.

I came to another spot and hid just inside a ventilation grill.

When Burana got close again, I dropped out and ran again. That time I avoided him.

The next time I was an access panel. After thinking about it, I decided to end this confrontation.

When Burana got close I resumed my form. I held up my hands in surrender.

"I surrender. If you seek me as a bounty hunter, you can bring me in." I offered.

With hesitation, Burana walked up to me and cut me in half again.

"The reward says, 'Dead or Alive.'"

I ran again.

I found my way into a supply closet, hoping that would provide extra protection.

6.37 hours later the door opened, and he began to hack. I resumed my shape as quickly as possible, but it was a bad position. He held the door and the only way out. He began to score touches in the small space. I struggled to get by. As I struggled he cut off my right leg at the knee. I fell

Lying on the grimy metal floor, thank the Force on the outside of the closet, I looked at my leg for .018 seconds. If I tried to reconnect with my leg, Burana would cut me to ribbons. I fled.

Thus, was defined our game of hide and seek.

I would flee. I would hide. He would use the Force and find me. If I hid well, I could stay hidden longer. If he sought well, he found me sooner. Sometimes, I would flee before he could cut me. Sometimes he got the back slash. Sometimes I would try and fight, which I always lost, sometimes I just fled. I learned, and he learned. Days went by. I knew not to try and hide in a closet.

Each meeting cost me more of me. It was small consolation that I still lived. Normal flesh and blood would have been dead in that first meeting. Still, I was only dragging it out. Eventually, he would destroy enough of me and I would lose coherence and die.

Where was Sky? Why was I still alone?

*** And now a word from our sponsor! ***

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Please help. Thank-you.


	16. Chapter 16

**Legend of the Harp**

 **Episode III: The Crucible**

 **Chapter 16: So Lonely**

*** Jedi Padawan Fio Brown, Castanea ***

I knew things could not continue this way for ever. Each day we got more tired, hungry and weak. Each day they got closer. Inevitably, they would catch us. I needed to do something.

I came up with a plan. It was stupid dangerous. I could hear Master Dodger in my head saying, "That's your plan? Make a better one!"

So, I hesitated. Each day I would consider and each day I would postpone. Then came a day I looked at my companions. I was none too far from my physical edge, but Jedi Knight Chatterjee had been out here alone with almost no food, water and heat for much longer. I wasn't sure she could go another day. Sei, good, uncomplaining Sei, he didn't have the Force to keep him going. I didn't know how he'd made it this far.

I hadn't been able to come up with a better plan, so I called a halt and watched their exhausted bodies collapse to the tree branch. I explained my plan, such as it was, to Jedi Knight Chatterjee and Sei.

"I need you to continue. I will circle around as I can move faster than either of you."

I know that sounds crazy. Obviously, I could move faster than Sei, but Jedi Knight Chatterjee? Yes, she could out sprint me a short way, but she was more tired, hungry and exhausted than Sei and me put together.

"When I get behind them, I'll look for a transmitter. If I can find one, I'll be able to send a distress call and hopefully the Harp will be able to get someone out here to rescue us. Does anyone have a better idea?"

They shook their heads. I was afraid of that. As it was coming up night and they were exhausted, I let them settle down for a bit of sleep. Knowing they would continue in the morning. I started moving immediately as I knew cover of darkness would be my friend.

I let the Force guide me. I took off in a long loop around where I could feel our pursuers to be. Since they were so close behind us, I didn't have to go far.

As I moved along the branches, I found myself suddenly stopping. It seemed like the Force was preventing me from moving forward. I pushed, feeling a bit annoyed. It was cold. I was tired and hungry. The relentless pursuit we were under gave me precious little time to rest as it was. The last thing I wanted was to have to stop and wait. As I waited on a particularly solid branch, covered by leaves and unusually deep shadows, I caught a glimpse of one of our pursuers. It was a female Harch. I had never seen one outside of a textbook. Like many humans, I harbored a deep dread of arachnids. Seeing the large bulbous body of the female Harch made that dread very immediate. Worse was what I could feel from her, an endless malice made up of bottomless greed, completely indifferent to the suffering of others. For a second, it seemed as if she glanced in my direction, but now frozen, her glance passed by.

Clearly, as the Force guided my progress, it had also stopped me just now to help me hide. I felt grateful.

I kept going and found myself behind our pursuers. Bringing up the rear was a six limbed droid with a large backpack-like protuberance of equipment and supplies.

I reached out gently with the Force, found the droid's on/off switch and flipped it to off. The droid stopped moving. I moved up quietly and started searching the cases. I found a small supply of food rations I put in my pack. Then I found the transmitter!

I didn't know how long I had. Any moment, they would notice that their droid had gone missing. I fiddled with the controls and hoped to the Force I would be able to, at least, leave a message. Interstellar communications were never a certain thing. Still I'd worked with many types of transmitters. This wasn't one of them, but the principles were common enough I was able to set for Dandoran.

As soon as I hit send, instead of going to Dandoran, the transmitter jumped to a ship above us in geosynchronous orbit. It was only then that I realized that before me wasn't a long-range transmitter, just a simple repeater to a long-range comm, likely on the ship in orbit.

"Hey, this is Nibbs. Where are you trying to transmit to?" Came through the speaker too loud. At the same moment, the droid below me reactivated.

Every member of my own personal hunting party turned and looked.

In a split second my DK was in my hand and just as the droid was getting ready to hit me, I shot it between it's armor plates right in the main motivator.

I was already springing away as blaster bolts from a half-dozen different sources lanced out into the night and passed through the space I had just been.

I thought I might still get away, but then I felt a bolt hit me in my upper left shoulder. Oh that hurt!

I just let go and felt myself drop.

I fell for a bit over 200 meters when I finally stopped somersaulting in the air and landed on a particularly solid branch.

I could feel my pursuers, particularly the female Harch, dropping to follow.

I took off in another direction. The adrenalin in my system let me ignore everything, the tired, the cold, the hungry. Even the throbbing in my shoulder. Well maybe not my shoulder completely. Not being held up and going slow for Sei or Chatterjee, I moved fast.

I could feel my pursuers falling further and further behind.

*** Bounty Hunter Snare, Castanea ***

The pursuit was going well. I had just taken a verbal report from my Canis indicating we were closing. Not that I needed his report, my own well-developed tracking skills told me we were closing on our quarry. In another day, perhaps two at most, we would likely be in visual range of the quarry and then Twitch would fulfill his office.

We were resting for a short time during the darkest part of the night. It wouldn't help to have an accident or injury. I thought I saw something through the corner of one of my eyes. I looked more closely but saw nothing and went back to my other tasks.

However, when I heard Nibbs' voice pop out of the transmitter on the droid's back I knew immediately what had happened.

I know I have picked my team wisely but seeing how they all responded with fire within less than second behind my own shot reminded me of their quality. Still, I didn't have time to gloat over my good judgment. This was infuriating! The quarry was trying to rob my supplies! Obviously, the quarry was also trying to call for help.

I started moving at prey pursuit speed through the trees to get a cleaner shot. However, the quarry was closer to Twitch, who fired, just as the quarry fell. A lesser eye might have thought the quarry fell, having been hit. I could tell she was just falling to escape and began to pursue.

Unfortunately, the quarry managed to end her fall and move off with surprising grace and speed. I couldn't keep up without leaving my team behind. Then I got a call on my comm.

"You'll want to see this." Was Claw's report.

Claw once again was proving his value. While I had leapt off to the chase, he had stopped to take stock of the team and the equipment.

When I came back, I saw why he had called.

The cargo droid was dead.

The droid had been an expensive model, made more expensive by it's unusual, custom configuration for arboreal movement. The droid had been a calculated investment. By hauling gear for the team, it made it possible for the team to move more quickly, be more effective in combat. It still had two payments left! It was dead. Smoke was gushing from its side. For a second, I thought a team member had shot it by mistake. Then I realized, seeing the angle of the shot, that it had been the quarry! My anger, already white hot, became even more intense.

"Can it be repaired?" I asked.

"No. The main motivator unit is shot. It would be simpler and cheaper to buy another droid. We don't have the parts here even if it could be fixed." Replied Claw's always calm voice.

There was nothing for it then. The cargo was divi'ed up between the remaining team members and Nibbs had to come down and collect up the droid's dead carcass and the supplies it was better to do without.

"Report." I announced into the group comm. One by one, they each told their story quickly and efficiently. Essentially, they heard Nibbs over the Comm, turned and saw the intruder. They fired. Until she got to Twitch and got the first good news of the evening.

"I definitely hit her. It was a short human female. She was armored, but it hurt her. She's not down, but she is wounded."

*** Jedi Padawan Fio Brown, Castanea ***

I ended up doing a full loop and, as I got back to Sei and Chatterjee, the final wisp of adrenalin was burnt out and I collapsed.

I was only vaguely aware of what happened then.

Sei made sure I was attached safely to a branch, then he pulled off my torso armor. He took my med-kit from my pack and went to work on my back. Between the pain and the exhaustion, I passed out.

When I came back, I found myself wrapped in a blanket. I also smelled food.

Sei came up and offered me my camp bowl. "I found the rations you stole. We've already had our shares, but we saved some for you."

The nearly flavorless ration paste was normally something I turned my nose up at, but right now it smelled heavenly. I took the bowl and started to feed myself. As I did, the biting pain in my shoulder came back.

Sei must have seen me wince.

"I used your med kit as best I could. I don't think the wound on your back is life threatening, if we can get care." He explained.

Obviously Sei was pretty trustworthy. He could have killed us both when I was out. Run off at the very least. I finished the meager bowl of rations. Sei had apparently broken open only a portion large enough for a single human adult and shared it three ways. Smart. No knowing how long we would have to last.

After I finished my tiny meal. I got up, stretched, winced again, then went and got the rifle.

I handed the rifle back to Sei. He could have easily picked it up when I was out. "You might as well have this. Obviously, you're not going to kill us at your first opportunity. Just so you know, if you get tempted, those are some nasty looking bounty hunters back there chasing us. If they catch us, they'll still kill you and make your body disappear, which should be pretty easy in a place like this. If you live, it would cloud their Imperial bounty. The Empire could claim you already caught us and deny some or all of the payment. They know that and now you do too."

Sei nodded with grim resolve. Why did I notice how good his chin looked when he did that? And the cheekbones. Oh, those cheekbones. "No, Focus." I told myself.

Sei and Jedi Knight Chatterjee helped me back into my now damaged top and broken armor. Examining the armor plate, I realized I was lucky that bounty hunter only got a glancing hit at range. Still, if I wasn't wearing Scoeti armor with the Zillo paint I'd probably be dead. That's the second one I owed that beast.

Once my gear was on, which I hoped would help hold the battle dressing in place, I could still feel my shoulder. It felt like someone was stabbing me in the back with a red-hot metal poker.

"We have to move as fast as we can. They're coming to get us fast. I did what I could to slow them down, but we only have a day, two at the most. We have to move faster or we're dead." I explained.

We moved out. We had the rations, but I didn't dare slow down to pick food, and only stopped for water when it was right along our path.

Between the female Harch, the constant pain in my shoulder and the certain knowledge that they would find us, and when they did, kill us, I felt a fear settle into me bone deep. It was a matter of hours before they caught us, and when they did, we were dead. I had no idea what I could do to stop it and if they knew, Sei and Jedi Knight Chatterjee weren't saying.

*** And now a word from our sponsor! ***

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While I love to write, I do have a spouse and a child and a job and many other claims on my time that don't understand why I would spend so many hours banging on a keyboard. A small tangible return would help smooth the way to allow me to provide many more stories.

Please help. Thank-you.


	17. Chapter 17

**Legend of the Harp**

 **Episode III: The Crucible**

 **Chapter 17: Eye of the Tiger**

*** Jedi Knight Jors Zaemon, above Baetar Prime ***

I texted Chief of Staff Mal Basyah, "What can we do to help?"

A bit surprisingly, we got a fast response, "An alpha strike has been launched against the Mitzri flagship. You could join them?"

"What's an 'alpha strike,'" I texted back.

A quick response came back, more polite than I would expect and quicker, implying that I had been dumped to a subordinate, "An alpha strike is a large group of fighters, assembled in the hopes of swamping the target's defenses. We have never had to deal with a fighter screen before. We have added additional fighters as a screen of our own to protect the fighters armed with anti-ship weapons, in an effort to try and insure we will still be able to penetrate the screen."

"Let your alpha strike know were joining them." I texted back.

I gave the orders and Bearer was joining a counter attack with a large flight of Baetari fighters attempting to strike an enemy fleet and pierce her defenses. Our four Vultures had been deployed as I leapt into my preferred gunner's seat, forehead, and began to fire.

We approached what looked like the Mitzri flagship, it was an odd shape, but roughly as large as a Corellian Progress class cruiser, maybe a bit bigger.

We ran into a cloud of TIE fighters. Based on intelligence reports Furry had assembled, I recognized that they were clearly the TIE fighter version the Mining Guild had been allowed to purchase. This made sense considering all of Baetar's enemies had close ties to and were part of the Mining Guild.

The Mining Guild TIEs were cheaper than standard TIEs as they only had six of the big grav plates, rather than the eight typical Imperial TIEs carried in their side wings. I quickly realized the Mining Guild TIEs still could maneuver ridiculously fast and the missing two plates probably improved pilot visibility while reducing the craft's targetable cross section.

The Baetar alpha strike hit the cloud hard. The small Kfirs and larger Lavis started punching a hole in Mitzri fighter cover. The Kfirs and Lavis inflicted a terrible toll on the Mitzri TIEs. The Baetari fighters tried to punch a hole for the larger fighter/bomber Neshers, but they were just overwhelmed by the vast numbers of Mitzri TIEs.

We slammed into the Mitzri TIEs a second later with our Vultures around us forming a screen. We took a toll on the TIEs as well, but it seemed like for every one we shot down, they had two more to fill the space. If there was one saving grace, it was that their pilots were clearly not that good. I don't know how many TIEs I blasted that just seemed to be going slowly in a straight line.

That changed when a clearly expertly piloted TIE flew through our formation blasting one of our Vultures out of space.

"Follow that one!" I ordered.

We immediately dove after him. He was a nasty piece of work. We'd chase. He'd loop around and punish us some more, then we'd chase again. If Bearer was a standard Gozanti, he would have blown us from the sky. As it was, he had us hard pressed. Finally, on the fourth go round, I closed my eyes, I felt my thumb trigger the cannon once and it was over.

When I opened my eyes, I saw that I had just blasted the Mitzri ace. If that was a Mitzri. I could also tell that the Neshers had hit the cloud of TIEs. The Neshers had inflicted a terrible toll on the TIEs as well, proving the 'fighter' component of their 'fighter/bomber' designation. Still the Neshers had not been able to break through and use their load out of anti-ship torpedoes. The Mitzri capital ships remained safe while they poured out fire into the Baetari fighters.

I heard the recall code, the Baetari were taking too many casualties and weren't breaking through.

"Captain, take us on a polar orbit of this system's star, out of this system's ecliptic plane. Maximum speed." I ordered.

I could feel my order being followed as Bearer heeled over hard and raced away from the battle.

The TIEs that chose to follow us were blasted or quickly left behind.

I sent a text back to Chief of Staff Basyah, "Most of the TIE pilots aren't very good, but a handful seem to be very competent. Pass the word. I will try and bring in some reinforcements."

A minute later my text was acknowledged. I knew she would have her hands full.

As we flew, we started trying to contact back to Dandoran space.

*** Imperial Admiral Scharn, aboard his flagship, the Star Destroyer Relentless ***

"The opening moments of the battle seem to be going well, though they do seem to be taking some terrible casualties." General Borgia remarked looking over the same situation table as the other senior officers.

"True, but they have plenty of casualties they can take, and it wouldn't suit Imperial policy for them to have much left once the job is done. Mission Instructions remain the same." Admiral Scharn replied calmly.

Admiral Scharn's tone belied what he felt in his gut. Admiral Scharn was a typical product of his homeworld Kaiserliche. Kaiserliche was an old core world member of the Republic and Senate, now a core supporter of the Emperor. Kaiserliche had been strongly in support of an Order political agenda even before the Clone Wars. Kaiserliche had contributed a large number of personnel to the Republic military and had continued as it became the Imperial Military. While Kaiserliche was better known for it's ground forces, quite a few products of her well regarded naval school, Marinschule Keel, like Admiral Scharn, had joined the Imperial Navy as well.

Admiral Scharn had joined the Imperial Navy just after it had been formed in the wake of the Empire being declared. On the basis of his education, Scharn had been accepted immediately as a Lieutenant. As the Imperial Fleet had mushroomed in size, constantly desperately in need of skilled personnel, Scharn had risen quickly, riding the crest of the lack of personnel wave with relentless competence and loyalty and now found himself an Admiral.

Not only an Admiral, but in command of a flotilla of three Star Destroyers, a number of cruisers, corvettes and other lesser ships.

Now Admiral Scharn was known as a favorite hatchet of Moff Tarkin, who was known to be a favorite of the Emperor.

Admiral Scharn found he got along well with Moff Tarkin. They both came from military families, a Captain Scharn had been among the original settlers of Kaiserliche, and they both valued professionalism, competence and, when necessary, ruthlessness.

Admiral Scharn had found General Borgia's statement of the obvious a bit annoying but was grateful to have him present. General Borgia was nominally his subordinate, but really, they were in different chains of command. This meant Admiral Scharn had found he could confide in General Borgia.

Having a confidant with whom one could candidly share one's problems had been enormously helpful for Scharn. After all, as commanding officer of the fleet, it would look bad and be bad for discipline if he shared his concerns with a subordinate. Any equal in another part of the fleet had to be considered a rival and it would hardly be a good idea to look weak before his superiors.

However, since Borgia was in a different chain of command, Scharn found he could speak openly. Scharn and Borgia had come up the ranks together, looking out for each other's career when possible and had provided each other with the invaluable service of just being a sounding board. They had both benefited from having two heads examine their problems instead of one and, sometimes, just commiserating over a regulation breaking bottle of schnapps.

They had fought together in several battles now including Die Tze and Emberlene. The victory on Die Tze had really been more to, then, Colonel Borgia's credit. Rather than taking the simple line of "kill anyone who resists," Borgia had sought out and taken prisoners who had become invaluable sources of intelligence.

The superior intelligence had allowed Admiral Scharn to flex his forces between stopping the resupply runs from getting through while also being able to commit them to surface support, maximizing their efficiency.

Breaking the resistance on Die Tze had resulted in Borgia's promotion to General. Both Scharn and Borgia enjoyed the credit for the success.

Bombing Emberlene had been distasteful work, but Borgia's carefully prepared ground defense schematics were key to planning out the attack and the best ways to break Emberlene's not inconsiderable defensive positions had been invaluable again. It may have been distasteful work, but Emberlene had been rebellious and all traces of rebellious behavior had to be rooted out.

Now they had a new task, which was even more distasteful.

Baetar was clearly disloyal to the Emperor, and thus, had to be destroyed. Still, unlike the remote Emberlene, Baetar was a member of the Senate, and if an Imperial fleet showed up and bombed them out of existence, it would be politically awkward.

A simple solution presented itself though, Baetar was surrounded by enemies who would like nothing better than to destroy her. All that needed to be done was to have someone give them a dose of basic competence.

That someone had been Admiral Scharn.

The leaders of Baetar's enemies had been brought together and Admiral Scharn had reviewed their strategy with them.

The first thing Admiral Scharn had noticed was they had no fighters.

"Why don't you have snub fighters?" He'd asked.

The answer was long and complicated, but could be quickly summed up to, "If the Baetari like snub fighters, they must be bad."

Admiral Scharn found much of his time with his erstwhile allies would be spent being patient with their unnecessarily long-winded answers and emotional, child-like thinking.

The absence of snub fighters? Admiral Scharn quickly fixed that. He had done the simplest thing, have them order large numbers of Mining Guild-type TIEs. Then they had begun training.

After that, Admiral Scharn had also reviewed their fleet tactics. They were abysmal. They would bring in all their ships on a single vector, making sure Baetar only had to defend along one axis.

Admiral Scharn had created new plans using multiple vectors. This would spread out Baetar's defenses and leave holes.

After all the plans had been created, equipment purchased, and training begun, Admiral Scharn had a quiet conversation with General Borgia in his quarters over some illicit amaretto.

"I feel uncomfortable about this mission." Admiral Scharn began.

"Why?" General Borgia replied.

"I have been asked to do a great many distasteful things as an Imperial officer and I have done my duty, but I didn't join the Imperial Navy to help aliens murder humans." Admiral Scharn answered.

It was a common feeling on predominantly human Kaiserliche, and many other predominantly human worlds that humans consistently got the short end of the stick in the Republic. The Republic seemed to slavishly devote itself to ideas like, "Diversity and Tolerance."

While these ideas sounded so pretty in the pointy towers of politics and academia, in practice it always seemed to work against humans.

A civilization of a few thousand aliens being jumped up in line for record speed recognition and a seat in the Senate when human civilizations with billions, even trillions of citizens waited decade after decade.

Government contracts always being handed out to help develop poor, disadvantaged alien species, when the contracts could be filled more cheaply and efficiently on human worlds which also desperately needed the jobs. Particularly when it seemed the major barrier the alien species had to development was that they were completely lazy because they had gotten used to the Republic government giving them everything.

Under the Republic, pro-alien admission quotas at important, major pan-galactic universities were common. Somehow no one seemed to notice pro-alien meant anti-human discrimination.

The list was endless. The Empire had promised to work on merit, and if merit meant pro-human, so be it.

It had been bad enough what had been done to human worlds like Die Tze and Emberlene.

"To help non-humans, particularly those non-humans, murder humans is not what I signed up for." Admiral Scharn finally said.

"True, but once they have exhausted themselves ridding the galaxy of a planet disloyal to the Emperor, we will be able to divest them easily from the mineral assets they currently control. No doubt those resources didn't truly belong to them anyway. Without their Mining Guild revenues, they will be weak and easily controlled." General Borgia consoled.

"I have explained the Mission Instructions? Have I not?" Admiral Scharn asked.

"Of course." General Borgia replied.

The Mission Instructions were complicated, but clear. Admiral Scharn had them from newly promoted Grand Moff Tarkin himself.

"You will collect Baetar's traditional enemies. You will then prepare them, discreetly, as best you can. It is important that this conflict appears to have emerged organically. It cannot appear as if it was instigated by the Emperor.

"Once, hostilities have commenced, you are to watch and analyze. Should our clients be able to complete the job," and it was left unsaid but clear that meant exterminating the entire population of Baetar, "you will not intervene.

"If our allies are not capable, but close, you should intervene. It should be possible under these circumstances to be discreet. I trust your judgment in this matter.

"Lastly, if they fail suddenly and badly, do not intervene. It is critical that the Emperor not be embarrassed by appearing to be instigating this situation. Do you understand?" Tarkin concluded.

Admiral Scharn had simply saluted and been dismissed.

*** And now a word from our sponsor! ***

Please don't miss that this is the third exciting book in this series. The original Legend of the Harp Books 1 and 2 are also on this site!

If you enjoy modern urban fantasy and my writing, you may also enjoy a series of three novels I have written in the Dresden Files universe of Jim Butcher, called Warlock of Omaha, Warlock of Omaha Squared and Warlock of Omaha Cubed!

This writer, like the story teller in the market of old, now has a hat out hoping for a small gratuity. There is no obligation and I'm grateful you took a moment to read. However, if my writing has found favor in your eyes, please take a moment to go to:

Pay

Pal

.me

/hemaccabe

and throw in a little something, a dime, a quarter, a dollar, etc.

While I love to write, I do have a spouse and a child and a job and many other claims on my time that don't understand why I would spend so many hours banging on a keyboard. A small tangible return would help smooth the way to allow me to provide many more stories.

Please help. Thank-you.


	18. Chapter 18

**Legend of the Harp**

 **Episode III: The Crucible**

 **Chapter 18: Do Not Forsake Me**

*** Jedi Knight Jors Zaemon, moving to polar orbit Baetar Prime's Star ***

I had the subspace transmitter reaching to Dandoran where Admiral Spruance and the fleet should be. The comms remained jammed. Knowing each second would be paid for in Baetari blood was agonizing. Each second also begged the question, was I still jammed or was I just not able to reach through. We were a substantial chunk of the Known Galaxy apart. The further a transmission had to go, the more likely some blob of galactic detritus or radiation was to get in the way and the less likely one would be able to connect. Even if I got through, how soon could any help get here?

As the minutes rolled by with Bearer at full thrust, which pushed us hard back into our chairs even with grav assist, I got more worried. I reached to the transmitter and put the palm of my hand against it. I reached out and tried to push the Force through the comm. I don't know what I was thinking, was the Force going to stop a supernova, move a black hole or push a nebula aside for me?

After a moment though, a feeling I had never felt from the Force came back through to me. The feeling was much more sentient and alive than the Force had ever seemed and while it gave me a feeling, and not words, it seemed to be saying, "Don't worry, I have you safe in the palm of my hand."

Just as the feeling went through me, the Comm came on, "Commodore Spruance here. What can I do for you sir?"

I wasted no time. "Commodore Spruance, Baetar is under massive attack. I need everything you can scratch together, fast and for you to get here, fast."

"Acknowledged, but I have a few questions I'd like to ask. It could be important?"

All I wanted was to give the command to turn around and dive back into battle, but Spruance's request made sense. He spent, perhaps five minutes, asking me what I knew about what was attacking, what their assets were and positions."

Commodore Spruance ended with, "Also, this is important, make sure the Baetari know we're on the way. Wouldn't want any friendly fire incidents."

While I had already mentioned something along those lines to Chief of Staff Mal Basyah, this would mean a lot of new ships and personnel emerging in-system. It was a good recommendation and I was grateful he had reminded me. "Will do."

I texted down to Chief of Staff Mal Basyah, "I have reinforcements on the way, including a number of capital ships. The Harp fleet is on the way. Please let your people know not to shoot at them. What can we do to help now?"

Chief of Staff Mal Basyah once again didn't make me wait long. Her text came through, "We're grateful for any help we can get. We're used to fighting alone. Would be nice to have some help right now. I'll pass the word. In the time you have been out of system, the enemy has launched a massive assault on Doram station. Doram has taken heavy casualties and is holding on by her teeth. Still, this attack has taken Doram out of the fight. This has allowed a massive landing near Watchtower of Spring. They already have more troops and armor on the ground than were used by both sides in the Clone Wars. Our ground units are holding, but if the enemy can continue to reinforce, it will be a matter of time. If you could do something to reinforce Doram, that would be the most help."

Authors Note: I seem to be implying some pretty big numbers for the attack, is that reasonable? When Syria and Egypt attacked Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Syria alone fielded an army with more tanks than had been used by all combatants in World War II. In addition, Syria and Egypt both had SAM-based Anti-Aircraft defenses better than what was fielded against US pilots in Viet Nam, and even by the Soviets on their European fronts. Israel's victory in that war was neither reasonable or rational, which is why they aren't taught at US Service Academies. It seems Israel has the support of a very old version of the Force. Her critics should keep this in mind.

"On our way." I replied.

I gave the necessary orders, "Get us on the station. I'll lead the marine contingent off. Then take this ship and do whatever you can to help the station and slow the landings."

The nervous young Lieutenant in command replied and saluted, "Yes Sir. Will do."

I thought for a moment. I wanted to give every possible chance success, but finally had to add, "Use of H-Torpedoes can only occur with my, or The Harp's direct permission."

"Understood." The Lieutenant replied.

We blasted back into the fight moving as fast as Bearer could, which was pretty fast. Our vultures had a tough time keeping pace. Soon we were at the station and in a gut wrenching, teeth vibrating maneuver, we were through one of the station dock shields. I led the platoon of Harp Militia off the ship. We got down so fast, Bearer never actually stopped moving. As soon as the last pair of boots jumped, Bearer, having executed a flying U-turn in the landing bay was blasting back out into space.

I had one platoon. Second platoon, fourth company, third battalion, or 342. They were some good humans, HX droids and one Ball droid. I was happy to have the heavier HX droids.

We came under fire almost immediately and the well-trained platoon responded by diving behind whatever cover they could find. Cover wasn't hard to find, there was burning wreckage everywhere.

We began to return fire. I reached out with my feelings and found their control nexus.

"Follow me!" I yelled as I came out from behind cover.

I realized there might not ever be a better time for it, so out my saber came.

When my saber ignited, shooting literally stopped for a full second. Baetar's enemies now knew they faced a Jedi. Chances were good, no one in 342 knew they had been fighting for a Jedi. Suddenly, I felt something from them which I saw on their faces. They had been going into this, determined, professional, but fully expecting to die. With my blade, they suddenly felt hope. From our foes, I now, for the first time, felt fear.

I pointed with my saber and yelled, "Speed of Force!"

The platoon leapt from cover to charge. Quickly I was inundated with panic fire which I deflected back. As we reached and destroyed the first concentration of enemy troops, I noticed they were mostly using E-5 and E-7 rifles. That meant the B-300s our troops carried would give them a substantial advantage.

We fought our way across the massive flight deck and had to move through corridors. With each step we destroyed the enemy. We took casualties. We picked up Baetari personnel who had been bypassed and trapped.

Finally, we emerged onto another flight deck. The nexus was before us. There were also thousands of enemy troops.

We fought. There were just too many. For each one of my troopers and Baetari who died, we took dozens of the enemy down. They just always had plenty more. I went from one enemy position to the next, the Force keeping me between enemy shots and letting me deflect the one's that might have got me. I'd leap behind some piece of cover, destroy the clump of enemy and move to the next. I noticed we were mostly fighting small reptilian Heeshem.

The Ball droid was particularly ruthless, with it's high speed, shields and high power, rapid fire guns it went through hundreds of the enemy.

I noticed we were running out of power. I had only eight platoon members left and a handful of Baetari. Most were already on their last charge pack and those were running low. My saber had been ignited for a long time, it was hot in my hands and I could feel it's Kyber crystal assisted charge running down.

The ball droid suddenly launched itself through the air and landed within the shields of the Heeshem command post where it blew itself up. The Heeshem still in the area threw down their weapons and fled.

We had never programmed the ball droid to do that. We had never trained for a droid to do that. I would never have given that order. It must have decided, on it's own, to give it's life for the cause.

Still, we honored the Ball droid's sacrifice and leapt into the smoking debris of the command post. We had the shields back up quickly and found functional charge spots. I found their comm and signaled a general retreat. That spread some confusion in the enemy's ranks.

Seeing what I had done, a Baetari officer said, "Eventually, the enemy will launch a counter-attack."

"Then we need to be ready. Find any weapons they left behind. Charge all blaster packs. Reinforce the walls." I replied.

We set to, readying this fortified position, our equipment and ourselves to face the coming onslaught.

It took the enemy over an hour to regroup and launch an assault on our position. They came by the thousands. However, during that time, more lost Baetari had rallied to our position. We had full charge packs and we were ready. We killed the Heeshem by the score.

I had been fighting for hours and I was exhausted. I knew the enemy was surrounding us and would soon overwhelm us. There was one last thing I could do, but I was afraid. If I left the relative safety of the captured enemy command post, then the enemy could surround me. Yes, I was wearing the Zillo beast leathers Furry had given me, but they would stop, at most, a single shot? That was the way so many Jedi had died during Order 66. A lightsaber was not proof against a hundred soldiers and blaster rifles. If I could control my fear, I might just give us a few more minutes to live.

I leapt out of the captured enemy command post and continued to jump from enemy position to position. I became a question that they simply could not answer, no matter how much fire they poured into me. Every so often they would try and mass for an attack on the captured enemy command post. I would land in their midst, spreading chaos, destroying discipline. My saber would sweep back and forth through their bodies with the same effort of swinging through empty air, sending vast numbers of them back to the great demon they worshipped.

Still, I had no connection to the outside. Was Bearer still existant? Had the landing destroyed resistance near Watchtower? Would Spruance get here in time?

If they didn't, even with my heroics, it would only be a matter of time.

*** Commodore Spruance, aboard Exxelon, above the Rock, Dandoran System ***

"Yes, you will have to delay going back for The Harp. Master Dodger's orders are clear. I have sent you the recording. You are part of the fleet and if there was ever a time we have need of you, it's right now."

Sky replied, "I am very uneasy about leaving The Harp on that station."

"I would love to have you go get him. It would be very useful to have him in this fight and that ship of yours is deucedly fast. However, the navigation is clear, Harp is in an odd spot in the wrong direction. It would add days to your transit and we don't have that time."

"I agree," Sky answered reluctantly. "Harp should be fine on that station for a few extra days and he would want us to win this battle."

"Good, I want you to take point position for the fleet. As soon as we have a clear scan, I will be sending mission priorities for you to transmit vectors to other fleet ships."

"Yes sir." Sky replied.

"Just like we've drilled."

*** Imperial Admiral Scharn, aboard his flagship, the Star Destroyer Relentless ***

"The battle proceeds just as you planned. If anything, too well. Congratulations." General Borgia commented watching the situation table.

"No congratulations until the battle is complete." Admiral Scharn reprimanded without heat.

"Of course," General Borgia replied then continued, "the landing near Watchtower should take out Baetar's primary surface-based assets and organizational structure. After that, it will only be matter of time. The remaining space-based assets on Suffone are barely enough to hold the station and completely insufficient to relieve the Doram station. Even if they had a surplus, they would be badly placed to support their Doram station, after all that's why they have Doram."

"We have seen other situations where certainties have been undone by help arriving unexpected and unlooked for. We must be cautious." Admiral Scharn responded, trying to be the responsible officer he had been trained to be at Marinschule Keel.

*** And now a word from our sponsor! ***

Please don't miss that this is the third exciting book in this series. The original Legend of the Harp Books 1 and 2 are also on this site!

If you enjoy modern urban fantasy and my writing, you may also enjoy a series of three novels I have written in the Dresden Files universe of Jim Butcher, called Warlock of Omaha, Warlock of Omaha Squared and Warlock of Omaha Cubed!

This writer, like the story teller in the market of old, now has a hat out hoping for a small gratuity. There is no obligation and I'm grateful you took a moment to read. However, if my writing has found favor in your eyes, please take a moment to go to:

Pay

Pal

.me

/hemaccabe

and throw in a little something, a dime, a quarter, a dollar, etc.

While I love to write, I do have a spouse and a child and a job and many other claims on my time that don't understand why I would spend so many hours banging on a keyboard. A small tangible return would help smooth the way to allow me to provide many more stories.

Please help. Thank-you.


	19. Chapter 19

**Legend of the Harp**

 **Episode III: The Crucible**

 **Chapter 19: Wanted Dead or Alive**

*** Jedi Knight Furin Kazan, Relay Station ***

I was hiding behind a conduit. There wasn't much left of me. I could still extend out and be a full body, but my skin would be paper thin, and I would be hollow. I would also be physically weak and worse, with so much of my thinking matter gone, stupid and slow. Each time I had met Master Burana he had defeated me. He was getting better at finding me quicker than I was getting better at hiding. I didn't have long.

While my thinking might not be at its very best, I could calculate how much of me was being lost in each encounter. If I lost as much me as I expected the next time he found me, I would lose enough that I wouldn't be able to continue to think and function. This next encounter would be my last.

Master Burana was coming, so I started to prepare. I stashed one pair of sabers. In a previous encounter, Master Burana had cut one double saber in half and they didn't work well. I undid the other pair. I put three blades into the conduit. I salvaged the best remaining power cell from the four sabers and placed it in the blade I kept, my own dark blue blade. One blade would be enough in our next fight, it was about all I could manage.

I could feel Master Burana coming down the corridor. I could hide, make him look for me a little longer, but decided to have some dignity in my last battle. So, I dropped to the floor and formed myself. The floor was grimy and there were bits of detritus scattered about. My blade hung at my side.

I noticed the corridor where I chose to make my last stand had an unusually large viewing window. As the Force would have it, the station's orientation currently placed the window with a view of the system's star, a massive, unstable red giant. The star had a ring of dust and debris around it's equator, probably the remains of her own planets that had been destroyed with her expansion. The star was unstable and normally an installation like the one I was on, with it's substantial Credit value, would not be placed in proximity to it. It was a magnetic storm released by the star that had forced the station to be evacuated and lost years before. However, like the Separatists, we now needed a station in this region and the needs of war outweighed good sense.

Master Burana came down the corridor and, when he spotted me, he smiled.

"Finally decided to face me? Good. I'll give you a quick death."

"What if I surrender?" I asked. "Your mandate is for 'Dead or Alive?'"

"That again? You're much too tricky for that aren't you, youngling. If I try and take you, no doubt you'll make a fool of me and escape. Perhaps find a way to fix a long-range transmitter like I caught you doing before and call for help. No, your remains will be coming back dead." He replied.

"Even if I gave my word as a Jedi?" I asked.

"You know the Jedi Order is dead. Such a word means nothing." He replied.

With his last reply, he ignited the saber that was already in his hand.

I lifted my saber and ignited it.

His last words made me think. I had been so focused in my training with the saber on technique, on mastering my new form. I had stopped thinking about using the Force.

Maybe it was too late, but I opened myself to the Force and I felt it flow through me. Then he was on me.

He swung, and my blade met his. Our blades crossed and then crossed again. He kept striking and I kept parrying. Even with the Force, the duel proceeded as it had already done many times. Eventually he struck at my right lower quarter guard, normally my weakest point and where he had bested me many times before.

Except this time the Force moved me. In previous duels, Master Burana would begin to pound at the place of my weakest defense and eventually break through. This time, rather than try and defend my right lower quarter guard, I spun around to the right as Burana's blade slashed through the space where my body had just been. My Force strengthened right elbow met his chest and he went down hard on his back. Before he could do anything, my sword was at his throat.

"Yield." I said simply, the way one might have said it a thousand times in saber practice at the Temple. I waited a long second, and Burana's body clearly relaxed.

I had to add "Drop it." Then another long second and his saber seemed to be rising slowly.

Once more, as my saber closed the very small distance to his throat, with more urgency, I said "Drop it." His saber clattered to the corridor floor.

I reached down and took his saber, never moving my saber from his throat. Then I looked down at him, I could feel, despite having finally won, something almost breaking in me. If there could have been tears in my eyes, there would have been.

Finally, I gasped out, "Why?"

"Why what?" He answered confused.

"Why did you hunt me? Why did you try and kill me? We're brothers! You're a Master!" I asked with desperation in my voice.

His head leaned back to the floor and his eyes closed in resignation, "I had nothing. All I wanted was a cabin, a little land. Enough Credits to live."

"You coined your fellow Jedi's lives for a few Credits?" I asked unbelieving.

"The Order is dead." He answered with a resigned tone.

"So long as I live, the Order lives." I answered.

I took some binders from his belt and put them on him. He had many bits and pieces secreted about his person which I removed.

I led him back to where I had food. I fed him, cared for him, never took my eyes off him for a second and we waited.

banging on a keyboard. A small tangible return would help smooth the way to allow me to provide many more stories.

*** And now a word from our sponsor! ***

Please don't miss that this is the third exciting book in this series. The original Legend of the Harp Books 1 and 2 are also on this site!

If you enjoy modern urban fantasy and my writing, you may also enjoy a series of three novels I have written in the Dresden Files universe of Jim Butcher, called Warlock of Omaha, Warlock of Omaha Squared and Warlock of Omaha Cubed!

This writer, like the story teller in the market of old, now has a hat out hoping for a small gratuity. There is no obligation and I'm grateful you took a moment to read. However, if my writing has found favor in your eyes, please take a moment to go to:

Pay

Pal

.me

/hemaccabe

and throw in a little something, a dime, a quarter, a dollar, etc.

While I love to write, I do have a spouse and a child and a job and many other claims on my time that don't understand why I would spend so many hours banging on a keyboard. A small tangible return would help smooth the way to allow me to provide many more stories.

Please help. Thank-you.


	20. Chapter 20

**Legend of the Harp**

 **Episode III: The Crucible**

 **Chapter 20: The Hope**

*** Jedi Knight Jors Zaemon, Doram Station, polar orbit Baetar Prime ***

I was in the former Heeshem command post. We were fighting the Heeshem man to man as they swarmed up over us. My troopers and their droids had their bayonets on their rifles, but our weapons were running out of power. We were killing the Heeshem in vast numbers, but they always seemed to have more to hurl into the fight and we were dying.

Suddenly, U-60s were landing and Freedom Battalion was jumping off. Their massed numbers, heavy weapons and Ball droids turned the fight. They turned the massed, concentrated formations of Heeshem from an advantage to a disadvantage. If the Heeshem had been dying in vast numbers before, now they were like wheat before the droid harvester.

Within moments, the Heeshem broke. Freedom's attack continued and the Heeshem casualties were accumulating even more quickly. Within minutes, except for small, isolated pockets, the many hectares of Doram's main landing bay was clear.

Major Bradley walked to me with a squad on guard all around himself.

"Sir, you stand relieved." He offered.

"I stand relieved. Clear all remaining enemy units and personnel from the station, then hold her secure." I replied.

"I have already contacted Admiral Spruance to report our circumstances." Major Bradley explained.

"Good. Where are Hero and Liberty?" I asked.

"They are landing on world to reinforce Baetari forces near Watchtower. Colonel Bayonet is commanding ground forces from the Lola Sayu. Perhaps you would like this?" Bradley reported and offered me a fresh tablet.

The tablet had secure links from Bayo and Admiral Spruance. I transferred functions from my old tablet which was almost dead to the new one, so I could continue to communicate with Chief of Staff Mal Basyah.

I sent Chief of Staff Mal Basyah a text, "Harp Fleet in system. Doram main lading bay secure. Harp Battalions should be on ground soon to help."

She replied quickly, "Thank-you for help. BDF forces should be arriving main landing bay soon."

BDF was the anacronym the Baetari used for their armed forces.

I then contacted Admiral Spruance. "What is your situation?"

Clearly leaning to a comm station while busy, Spruance replied, "I am above the main Baetar moon, Yorahk. We have a battle plan and I am executing it, but we are a bit busy right now. I will have telemetry sent so you can monitor our circumstances. Over."

With that I started to get a clear view of the situation. I could see our fleet above Yorahk. Geonosis, Mygeeto, Exxelon, Lola Sayu, Ryloth, Revenge and Bearer were all there. I wondered if Furry was on Revenge. There were also other ships which I assume were some of Furry's pirates. All the ships were surrounded by a cloud of X-Wings and Vultures which were screening away the enemy TIEs.

"Why is Spruance there?" I asked, not really expecting an answer.

"Maybe this officer can help?" Major Bradley said.

I turned and looked, there was a young female Harp Fleet officer. "Lieutenant Mir Iam at your service sir!"

She accompanied her declaration with a snappy salute.

"Do you know why Admiral Spruance has gathered the fleet there above the moon?"

"No sir!" She replied.

*** Imperial Admiral Scharn, aboard his flagship, the Star Destroyer Relentless ***

"Any changes?" Admiral Scharn asked the tech monitoring the battle display.

"No sir. Assault continues on Doram, should be in our hands soon."

"Good, continue to monitor." Admiral Scharn replied.

"Yes sir!" The tech replied.

*** Harp Militia Major Jackson, with Hero Battalion, Near Watchtower of Spring, on Baetar ***

Major Jackson looked at his five Captains then unrolled his battle map for them. Major Jackson pointed to the main Baetar defensive line. "This is the main Baetar defensive line. They have the bulk of the enemy bearing down on them. With the enemy cut off from further reinforcement or supply, the Baetari forces should be able to hold, and when their reinforcements arrive, drive the enemy back off planet. However, there are two clear paths which the enemy could take to encircle the Baetari defenses. If that happens, most likely the Baetari will be defeated and the planet will fall."

"What will happen then?" asked one of the Captains.

"Every man, woman and child on the planet will be massacred. Understood?" Major Jackson replied.

"Understood!" The Captain replied with renewed grim determination.

"We have responsibility for this path," Major Jackson said, scrolling on the map to the point near where they currently stood, in a valley between impassable mountains. The valley had a name, Yad Mord.

"We will set up a line here," Major Jackson explained pointing to a ditch that ran across the valley, "this position will give us tactical advantage. We will hold until relieved. No retreat. No surrender. Understood?"

"Yes sir!" His Captains replied.

"Get to your positions. Dig in hard!" The Major replied.

*** Jedi Knight Jors Zaemon, Doram Station, polar orbit Baetar Prime ***

I had expected Admiral Spruance to use Exxelon's guns to start blasting the enemy flagships. Instead, he seemed to be targeting smaller supply ships in each fleet. It made no sense.

"Do you have any idea what he's doing?" I asked Lieutenant Iam again without much hope.

"No Sir, but I have figured something out about his choice of placement." She replied.

"Really, what?" I asked.

"By positioning above the moon, Admiral Spruance can use the moon as a shield and engage only the enemy forces he wishes." Lieutenant Iam explained.

"Oh, that makes sense." I replied. Actually, it did make sense. I felt like the Harp Fleet was of higher quality and had better ships, but the enemy fleet was much larger. If the enemy fleet could mass around the Harp Fleet, they might have been able to swarm her. By using the moon the way he was, I could see Admiral Spruance was controlling the battle.

*** Harp Militia Major Chamberlain, with Liberty Battalion, Near Watchtower of Spring, on Baetar ***

"Are we in position?" Major Chamberlain asked over his comms.

"Yes sir!" Came all the replies from his Captain's. Captain Thomas' reply came last. Which was typical. Major Chamberlain felt a twinge of fear for his younger brother Thomas, but then focused on the situation.

Liberty Battalion was guarding the second approach to the Baetar forces' rear. Liberty had found a good position on high ground, well screened by trees. They had dug in deep and were ready for the assault.

*** Sky, Aboard Revenge, Baetar System ***

Sky targeted another moderately sized supply ship. This would be the third. Why they were depriving the Laban of a supply ship made no sense, but those were the orders.

Sky knew that they were attacking similar ships in the other fleets as Sky was responsible for providing the ships in each attack with optimized approach vectors.

Loss of the supply ships would hurt the enemy fleets, but the combatant ships should be able to maintain operations at least through the battle?

Still, the Revenge led the attack on the Laban supply ship. With Tranquility and a fleet of X-Wings and Vultures they slammed through the thin fighter screen and inflicted massive damage on the transport quickly.

In less than a minute the Laban ship was rolling over, venting burning fuel clearly on her way to her death, with Sky and Revenge leading their group away.

Sky hoped Admiral Spruance knew what he was doing.

*** Harp Militia Major Jackson, with Hero Battalion, Near Watchtower of Spring, on Baetar ***

Hero Battalion was dug in hard when the Mitzri advance forces met their position. A few minutes of bitter firing and the Mitzri scouts were running back down the valley.

The men cheered but Major Jackson knew more would be coming soon.

The Mitzri didn't disappoint. Within twenty minutes a Mitzri column of armor and infantry came down the valley and fighting began in earnest.

*** Harp Militia Major Chamberlain, with Liberty Battalion, Near Watchtower of Spring, on Baetar ***

The eel-like Rabi and arachnid Prus had been assaulting Liberty Battalion's position in well-timed tandem all day. Liberty had gotten no rest and was running dangerously low on supplies, but so far, they had held. However, if this went on much longer, they would be fighting hand to hand.

*** Jedi Knight Jors Zaemon, Doram Station, polar orbit Baetar Prime ***

The good news was that Baetari fighters were landing on the flight deck again. Surviving Baetari personnel had begun to immediately service the craft. Perhaps the small reptilian Heeshem had thought they would inherit the station, perhaps they just hadn't had time. Whatever the reason, they hadn't destroyed the fuel and ordinance supplies.

I checked with Major Bradley for the bad news, "Is the station clear yet?"

"I must report no. We have control of most of the station, but pockets of Heeshem are dug in at various locations and they are fighting tenaciously. They have refused several offers to surrender." Major Bradley reported.

"Show me their locations." I ordered.

Bradley pulled up a map of the station and showed me enemy locations. I was about to pick the nearest one, but decided to consult the Force, my hand seemed to pick an enemy location at random.

"I'm going to this location. I'll help our troopers dig them out." I announced.

"Yes sir." Major Bradley replied.

I'd been fighting for nearly twenty-four hours. My body was exhausted. But as long as this battle went on, so would I.

*** Imperial Admiral Scharn, aboard his flagship, the Star Destroyer Relentless ***

I had many duties to attend to. Also, I knew getting a few hours' sleep when the opportunity arose was critical to continued top performance. I also had washed, groomed and changed my uniform to make sure my appearance was pristine and crisp. Every Imperial officer knew a sloppy uniform or appearance could adversely affect morale. I had also gotten something to eat.

"Any changes?" Admiral Scharn asked the tech monitoring the battle display.

"No sir. Doram is in our hands. Baetari forces on the surface have been encircled."

"Excellent. Keep me apprised of any changes. Particularly negative ones." I ordered.

I had other missions to oversee and a fleet is a harsh mistress, needing relentless attention, but I would keep checking in regularly.

*** Harp Militia Captain Lafitte, near Major Jackson, with Hero Battalion, Near Watchtower of Spring, on Baetar ***

The vast Mitzri army continued to pound us all day long. To make it worse, there was a rare Baetar thunderstorm happening in the mountains nearby. The vast rumbles of thunder joined with the blasts of the battle in a terribly ominous way.

We were holding on by the skin of our teeth. Major Jackson had stood, like an immovable Brylark tree, near the center of our line all day. It seemed like his will alone had kept us in this fight. But casualties were mounting, and we were running out of energy packs. We would not be able to hold much longer.

*** Jedi Knight Jors Zaemon, Doram Station, polar orbit Baetar Prime ***

I had just returned to our ad hoc command center from cleaning out my third Heeshem pocket. The first pocket was apparently right next to the station's fuel supply and the Heeshem had almost detonated it. The second was near the main supply of proton bombs, ditto. The last had been next to the almost sabotaged life support.

Lieutenant Iam unexpected piped up. "I think I have something to report."

"Oh what?" I asked.

"I have been monitoring fleet actions through the day. Baetari fighters have disrupted enemy reinforcement and resupply to their forces on the ground and…." Lieutenant Iam stated then seemed to pause.

After a moment I asked, "Yes?"

"I have noted enemy fighter movements have become more and more erratic all day."

That was completely unexpected, "Do you have any idea why?"

I settled to rest for a moment while my saber charged and take a sip of the water someone had been kind enough to bring me.

"I have a theory." Lieutenant Iam said reluctantly then went silent again.

After a moment I asked, "Please share it."

"It seems that the main enemy combatant ships are not equipped to handle small fighter craft." Lieutenant Iam explained.

"That makes sense, they have never used small fighter craft before." I replied in agreement.

"Also, all the enemy fighters are Mining Guild variant TIE fighters which are short ranged and have limited endurance." Lieutenant Iam continued.

"Yes. Considering their connections, they seemed like the obvious choice." I mused.

"The ships that Admiral Spruance has been targeting so far have all been transports that have been modified to be carriers for their small fighters." Lieutenant Iam revealed.

"Oh, that crafty bastard!" I exclaimed. Now Spruance's strategy made sense. He had blasted the enemy carriers. That meant none of the enemy TIEs would have any place to go. They would begin to panic. The enemy fleets would lose their fighter cover. Spruance had probably also figured out that the enemy was saving the lion's share of their snub fighters as screens for their flagships, leaving the carriers relatively exposed.

"Oh, a new report just came in." Lieutenant Iam reported.

"What?" I asked.

"Admiral Spruance and the Exxelon just engaged the Prus flagship." Lieutenant Iam exclaimed.

*** Harp Militia Major Chamberlain, with Liberty Battalion, Near Watchtower of Spring, on Baetar ***

"Yes Captain Thomas, that's exactly what I want." I finished explaining.

Most Liberty Battalion troops were down to their last few shots in their blaster packs. I'd already given the command, "Affix Bayonets!"

The eel-like Rabi and arachnid Prus had been pounding Liberty's position all day in well-timed tandem giving us no chance to rest. They had succeeded in wearing us down. Most of my troopers were exhausted and almost out of ammo.

The Rabi and Prus had uncharacteristically backed down and given us a few moments to recover. I knew it was only so they could organize for a final massive assault. There was no reason to assume we wouldn't just crumble when it hit and when we crumbled, Baetar would go with us.

I had pulled all my Ball droids for a last desperate gamble. Those Ball droid shields and heavy blasters had kept us in this fight all day. Without them, in our already weakened state, the odds were even worse.

The Rabi slithered and the Prus skittered up the incline in massive numbers for a final assault.

They hit our remaining defensive line hard. We would only be able to hold for a few moments.

Then the Ball droids swung down from our left flank, closing like a door and slamming into the side of the Rabi and Prus formations which, confused by this sudden attack on their flank, crumbled and fled.

*** Harp Militia Major Jackson, with Hero Battalion, Near Watchtower of Spring, on Baetar ***

I had watched my troopers fight all day more heroically than anyone could reasonably expect under the massive onslaught of the very well equipped Mitzri forces.

"Affix Bayonets!" I ordered knowing most of my forces were out of ammunition.

The Mitzri were now advancing for a final time through the dry wash before us. Endless tanks and troops, many fresh, well fed, with adequate supplies. When they hit my line, we would break and Baetar would go with us. Only the Force could save us.

When the Mitzri were directly before us, they had someone announce, "You are hopelessly outnumbered. You need not die. Accept defeat. Surrender your arms."

I knew the reputation of the Mitzri. They enjoyed torturing prisoners, particularly roasting them alive and then eating them.

I had a bullhorn brought over and replied, "Come and take them!"

The troops cheered. I was pleased they would die with good morale.

The Mitzri charged into the draw before us. Within a few seconds the bulk of their forces was in the draw getting ready to charge up the side into us. Exhausted, with limited ammo and no remaining heavy weapons, we wouldn't last long. Still, they were holding through sheer will and tenacity. That wouldn't last more than a few minutes, but it was good to see. The Mitzri forces piled up into the draw.

Then, suddenly, a wall of water slammed down the side of the valley through the draw. It must have been fifty meters high, moving with incredible speed and force.

We all watched as the lion's share of the Mitzri army was, literally, washed away before us. Clearly, the Force was with us.

*** Jedi Knight Jors Zaemon, Doram Station, polar orbit Baetar Prime ***

After that, the battle seemed to go our way.

Without the flanking forces they were supposed to get, the main enemy ground force lost morale and ground to halt. With more and more reinforcements arriving, the Baetari ground forces counter-attacked and decisively defeated the coalition army.

It didn't help that TIE fighters had started crash landing on the planet.

Most of the TIEs crashed somewhere. Many into their own ships trying to force a landing or dock. It got worse as it became more and more clear this would be a massive defeat for Baetar's enemies and their surviving ships would be pulling out anytime.

Admiral Spruance, one by one, assisted by unopposed fighters from both Harp Fleet and Baetar, smashed each enemy fleet in space. In the end, the defeat was so swift and savage, few enemy ships escaped and of those that did, none unscathed.

It would be at least a generation before Baetar's enemies could hope to raise a force this large again.

*** Imperial Admiral Scharn, aboard his flagship, the Star Destroyer Relentless ***

Something was wrong. For the last twelve hours the reports had been coming in positive, but with no changes.

"Something is wrong. We have been getting the same reports and scans for several hours. Send probe droids in to get a clear picture. Have senior officers report."

My senior officers, including General Borgia began to arrive as a contingent of probe droids emerged in Baetar space, subtly. We didn't want to announce the Imperial presence.

Finally, our own independent scans revealed what was happening. The wholesale defeat of our coalition lay before us.

"We could still intervene?" General Borgia posed.

"No. Our orders are clear. Imperial forces emerging now and joining the attack would show our hand. The Emperor wouldn't want that placed before the Senate. We take no action. I will write the report. You are all dismissed."

*** Jedi Knight Jors Zaemon, Doram Station, polar orbit Baetar Prime ***

The battle was, except for a few cinders that were being mopped up, complete. I had a sudden feeling I should try and contact Fio.

I contacted Admiral Spruance and gave him the details, "Please try and put me through."

I figured Exxelon would have some of the best subspace commo gear in the system.

After a few minutes Admiral Spruance responded personally, "I believe we have a clean line to Castanea, but we're getting no reply. There could still be some local effect blocking transmission."

"Thank you, Admiral." I replied.

Then the Force gave me a feeling of terrible foreboding. I knew Fio was in imminent danger. I looked at the star charts and the many paths from the Baetar system but could find none that wouldn't take too long. Then I realized there was someone who was close enough, but would he render help in time?

*** And now a word from our sponsor! ***

Please don't miss that this is the third exciting book in this series. The original Legend of the Harp Books 1 and 2 are also on this site!

If you enjoy modern urban fantasy and my writing, you may also enjoy a series of three novels I have written in the Dresden Files universe of Jim Butcher, called Warlock of Omaha, Warlock of Omaha Squared and Warlock of Omaha Cubed!

This writer, like the story teller in the market of old, now has a hat out hoping for a small gratuity. There is no obligation and I'm grateful you took a moment to read. However, if my writing has found favor in your eyes, please take a moment to go to:

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Please help. Thank-you.


	21. Chapter 21

**Legend of the Harp**

 **Episode III: The Crucible**

 **Chapter 21: Holding Out for a Hero**

*** Jedi Padawan Fio Brown, Castanea ***

I managed three more days. Every item in my possession was soaked through and yet finding water to drink was almost impossible. The bone chilling cold moved through my body like there was nothing there to stop it. We were spreading the food rations I had scavenged out as far as we could, but the way they were spread, we weren't getting enough calories to support sitting still, much less the constant hiking we were doing from tree limb to tree limb. I was pulling on the Force to give me strength, but each time my foot rose for the next step I was surprised I hadn't collapsed. I had no idea how Jedi Knight Chatterjee and Sei were continuing to move, much less keep up.

I could feel that female Harch growing closer. We just couldn't move faster, and we wouldn't win a fight. Still, I was thinking about fighting. Yes, we would lose and die, or worse, but it seemed better than being shot in the back still fleeing.

I knew at some level I wanted to fight because it gave me an excuse to stop running. I was so exhausted, any excuse to stop, even suicide, sounded wonderful.

I kept putting one foot in front of another.

Then our flight came to an end.

"Stop now."

It was the female Harch. She had gotten around in front of us. I realized we were surrounded. We stopped and raised our hands. I was expecting to feel the bolt of a blaster any second. I closed my eyes. I knew I was going to die.

"Now you all die in pain and fear!" She screeched, her awful Harch voice full of gloating.

I closed my eyes. I was regretting that I hadn't drawn and fired as soon as I saw the Harch. Yes, I would have died instantly, but maybe I would have taken her with me. Suddenly, from nowhere, there was a series of blasts.

Was I dead? No. I hadn't been shot again. The wound in my shoulder was a clear enough reference on how much being shot hurt. My shoulder wasn't even the first time I had been shot.

I opened my eyes. Our pursuers were quite dead. I looked around and coming out of camouflage cloaks were a group of soldiers of some sort. They were all wearing very professional gear. They were using high quality, SA-14 rifles.

One of them came to me, with a smile he said, "Fio Brown?"

"Yes." I replied, still dazed. Was I arrested? Were these rival bounty hunters? They looked familiar.

It took me a second, I wasn't thinking too clearly, then I saw their shoulder patch and realized who they were! They were Dorsaix mercenaries! Dorsaix was a sparsely populated world, in a remote, resource poor mid-rim system. Most of their people lived in cottages on small farms. They earned most of their trade Credits by selling their people as mercenaries. They had a reputation for only selling service to people and causes they respected. They also had a fearsome reputation for competence. It was said the Dorsaix would give Mandalorians pause. But who were they working for? Were we their prisoners?

"Our employer wants to meet you very much." The Dorsaix captain said.

Then an excessively large and clearly very expensive yacht descended through the atmosphere. The yacht's hull was mostly a pearlescent white marble-like substance, the sort of vanity finish only indulged in by the excessively wealthy. Then, in case the white finish didn't make the owner's economic standing clear, there was also extensive gold trim. I would imagine it was real gold, because imitation would be so gauche. The yacht was the sort of thing that could only, possibly, be owned by the galactic one percent. At least it wasn't an Imperial shuttle.

Out of the luxury yacht came a man wearing a toga in the style of Respublica. Then I realized who it was, Androccoles of Respublica! Formerly Jedi Knight Tukir Harel. Was he here to take some sort of revenge for what we had done on Respublica?

He walked down the easy ramp from the hovering ship. He saw me, smiled, waved and began to come toward me. Then he saw Jedi Knight Chatterjee and his face totally twisted.

He started moving toward Jedi Knight Chatterjee, in slow steps and jerks, as if he couldn't believe his eyes, and I heard him ask, his voice broken, "Is that you? Keely? Please tell me? Is that you?"

Jedi Knight Chatterjee answered, her throat raw, "Yes Tuck, it's me."

Jedi Knight Harel ran to Jedi Knight Chatterjee and they hugged. They both cried.

Jedi Knight Chatterjee was the first to speak, "I thought you were dead."

Jedi Knight Harel replied, "I thought you were dead!"

Then Jedi Knight Chatterjee began to swoon. Without a moment's hesitation, Jedi Knight Harel swept her up in his arms and brought her up into the ship.

We all looked at each other, unsure what to do.

The leader of the Dorsaix stepped forward, "I think he would want the rest of us to board as well."

We all marched ourselves up onto the impossibly luxurious ship.

I went to look for our host and found Jedi Knight Harel had just placed Jedi Knight Chatterjee in the Med Bay. I could tell she was already unconscious.

Jedi Knight Harel turned and looked at us, "Fio Brown?" He asked.

"Yes?" I replied.

"Jojo asked me to come here and check on you, make sure you were all right. Looks like he had the right idea. I'll keep an eye on Keely, you two should get a shower and something to eat." Jedi Knight Harel explained.

If I wasn't so bone tired and hungry, I might have objected. Instead, I let Jedi Knight Harel show Sei and me to two very nicely appointed staterooms.

I stripped out of my gear in a warm dry place, that alone was almost more luxury than I could take. I walked myself into the very well-appointed lav. Shower or bath? Hard to decide. I eventually chose shower because I was worried I'd pass out and drown myself in a bath.

When the warm water hit my skin, it was the best feeling I think I might have ever had.

I came out of the shower and, after drying off, found a very nice robe waiting for me. The droid attendant informed me, "Whenever you are ready, you may come out and the Praefect has food prepared."

Food sounded better than sleep right now.

I came out of the stateroom and the droid led me to a dining room. I wasn't totally trusting, I had my pistol in the robe's voluminous pocket. Sei, also wearing a robe, met me at the door to the dining room. By the Force he looked good in that robe.

We entered the dining room where we were greeted by Jedi Knight Harel, "I have a wide variety of food aboard. You have but to request anything you may wish, and my chef droid will prepare it. However, based on where you came from, I thought this food might appeal to you?"

On the table were two place settings. At each was a cup of tea and a bowl of oaf soup with noodles and dumplings.

Before I could eat, I had to ask, "How is Jedi Knight Chatterjee?"

Jedi Knight Harel answered, "Oh I have good news on that. She has serious concerns due to exposure, exhaustion, dehydration and malnutrition. However, we have warmed her up and are currently administering high-nutrient fluids. The Med Droid expects a full recovery after a reasonable period of convalescence."

"That is good news." I replied.

That was as much will power as I had. I sat down and took a sip of tea. My extensive knowledge of tea let me know it was a very well regarded Zhonghuan herbal blend that would let one sleep. It had also been brewed expertly. Sei sipped his and added sweetener. No one is perfect. The soup was wonderful oaf bird soup with noodles, bits of tender oaf bird and some very light dumplings. It was delicious. I suspected, even if I wasn't famished, it would have been delicious.

When we were done eating, I leaned back in the very comfy chair. I had forgotten my shoulder and winced.

That got Jedi Knight Harel's attention, "Is something wrong? Are you injured?" He asked.

"Oh, it's nothing..." I began, but Sei interrupted me.

"She was shot in the back of the shoulder."

Jedi Knight Harel immediately stood up, "You should have said something. Let me see."

Of course, he came around the table pulled back the upper left-hand side of my robe and looked.

"This is serious, please come with me." Jedi Knight Harel asked.

He led me, and Sei followed, to the Med bay and nothing would do but that I be examined, and once examined, into the bacta tank I went.

At least it was warm, and I got some sleep.

Twelve hours later I emerged from the bacta tank, was carefully washed and the much-reduced wound was bandaged.

When I walked out of the med bay, I found Sei asleep, sitting on the corridor floor.

I knelt and shook him.

"What...where?" He woke up.

"Did you wait here for me?" I asked amused.

"I wanted to make sure you were all right." He explained.

"That's sweet." I said and gave him a small peck on the cheek.

"I'm still hungry, shall we see what they have?" I asked to be answered by a rumble from Sei's belly and an embarrassed look.

We made our way back to the Dining Room.

Jedi Knight Harel was there and as soon as he saw us, sent a signal.

Jedi Knight Harel had been speaking to Master Dodger and continued, "See, I have her. She's all right. I assume this is one of your troopers who also survived."

Master Dodger looked at Sei and said, "I don't recognize him, but I'm sure we'll get the bottom of everything when you get here to Dandoran."

"Of course." Jedi Knight Harel replied.

Master Dodger looked at me, "Fio, you're all right?"

"Yes Master, I'm fine." I replied.

"Good, I'll see you back on Dandoran." He replied.

The food came again and was similar, except I noticed the portions were bigger. Also, this soup had veggies in it.

When we were done I got up to go back to my stateroom.

Jedi Knight Harel said, "We're still a number of hours from Dandoran. Please, get yourselves some rest. I'll let you know when we arrive."

I nodded and got up, Sei followed me.

When we got to my stateroom, I decided I'd earned a bit of a reward, so I said, "Sei, I'd feel better if I wasn't alone. Would you join me?"

"Uh, okay." He replied.

I took him in my stateroom and then to the lav. I started a bath.

"I want to take a bath and I want you to make sure I don't drown." I explained.

"Okay. I can do that." He replied nervously.

"Why don't you get in and tell me how the water is?" I asked.

I could tell this confused him, but I could see him screw his courage to the sticking point. He dropped his robe, revealing his extremely statuesque, though currently a bit thin form. He got in the tub and leaned against the back.

I dropped my robe and could tell he liked what he saw as much as I had. I got in the tub and leaned my back against his heavenly chest. Oh, he felt so good. Then I felt something between his legs which was pressed very pleasantly against my rear which told me he felt as I did.

I turned around then in the very large tub and we both got to enjoy each other. I found it relaxed me far better than anything I could have imagined. I ended up asleep in his comfortingly strong arms.

When we got to Dandoran, we were provided with some very basic clothes and duffels for our surviving gear.

Jedi Knight Harel parked his ship right next to the big house Master Harp keeps in the hills just south of town, normally a no-no, but I guess this was a special occasion. We walked down the ramp with Jedi Knights Harel and Chatterjee. Masters Harp and Dodger were there to greet us.

Master Harp reacted to Jedi Knight Chatterjee a lot like Jedi Knight Harel had. There was a lot of hugging and grasping of arms.

Master Dodger came over to me and, very uncharacteristically hugged me. I liked it. Then he held me at arm's length and asked, "Are you okay?"

"Yes Master, I'll probably need a few days to recover, but I'm okay." I replied.

"You should be proud of your Padawan, Jojo. When you get the full report, don't let her understate just what she went through." Jedi Knight Harel added making me grimace on the outside but feel proud on the inside.

I realized right there, yes there were some things about this mission I wasn't proud of. I lost my ship, crew and squad for starters. But I had kept going when the going was hard, and I had succeeded in the mission objective. Jedi Knight Chatterjee was safe here on Dandoran. That was a big deal.

"Who is this young man? He wasn't part of your crew or squad." Master Dodger asked.

"He's someone I met along the way. I can vouch for him in the short term. You'll get a full explanation in my debrief and report." I replied.

"Good enough. Go see your Mother. She's been worried about you." Master Dodger ordered.

"Yes sir!" I replied, and we were off. I was grateful Sei stayed quiet. I could feel from him that he was confused about what he was seeing and was just soaking it all in.

With that, I went and dumped my duffel in the house and had Sei dump his duffel in the bedroom next to mine. I kept my Credit chip and we walked to my Mom's shop. When we got there, I shook my head and acted like my absence was no big deal. Inside, I was really glad my Mom made a big deal over me and cried.

Once my Mom regained her composure she turned and looked at Sei, "And who is this?"

"Like I said Mom, I was basically camping on this forest world. Sei was a Public Safety Ranger who helped out. He wanted to see Dandoran, so I invited him back with me." I replied as nonchalantly as I could manage.

I'm pretty sure my Mom doesn't have access to the Force, but she does have whatever magic power Mothers have over their children, so she knew something was up between Sei and me. This was good as she would now think I was lying about Sei, not how dangerous the mission had been. I did NOT want my Mom to know I'd been shot, again, or how close I had been to dying. That would not help.

Of course, Mom had to fill us up with roasted oaf bird and rice. Then lots of pie. Sei ate a lot. Mom liked that.

Since all of Sei's and my gear was trashed, when we were done eating, I took Sei to the Marketplace.

On the way I explained, "I think it's probably better we don't tell everyone you were a Storm Trooper. We'll just go with the 'Public Safety Ranger' thing okay?"

Sei nodded reasonably, "That makes sense considering."

"If you want to stay, you'll be welcome. If you want to go back, we'll put you on a transport. If you want to go somewhere else, we'll send you there." I explained.

"I want to be where you are." He said.

I tried to roll my eyes and be cool, but when he said that, my insides melted.

"Since you have, like, no gear and my stuff pretty much all got trashed, I'm taking us to the Market. I have plenty of Credits. If you see something you want, just point and I can buy it." I explained.

"Anything?" Sei replied surprised.

"You want to buy a planet?" I asked.

"No, I suppose not. But where I grew up, we never had money. We got what the Imperial authorities gave us. Then as a, uh, you know, I was always on duty." He answered.

"Don't worry. Shopping's not complicated." I explained with a laugh.

"Okay. I have read about shopping." Sei replied.

That made me smile.

We went to the Market and I was amazed how it had changed. I remembered the market in the original Korpluck Town. It was a circle of clapboard, open faced, floorless sheds. The walls and roofs of the sheds had been whatever scavenged scrap the stall keepers could find. Stall keepers had to be careful to pick the best piece of board, generally corrugated tin, for their roofs, to keep off the rain and snow. The shopkeepers roasted in summer and were lucky to have a small stove as they froze in winter.

Now the market was a circle of pleasant, modern shops. There was a large covered portal around the inner circumference of the market to make browsing and strolling pleasant. All the shops were indoors, surrounding the train station that took one to the industrial area and spaceport. The location was very convenient for shopkeepers and patrons as most of the population was still working for one of the industrial concerns. People could pick things up easily on the way to and from work.

I started to shop for clothing, picking up some basics. Sei didn't pick anything useful. However, every time we passed something to eat, he'd point. He had oaf on a stick, a green milk shake, beef of a stick, fried potatoes, a sandwich, fried fish, a fruit juice smoothie, okay, I had a smoothie too, it was good.

"You need to buy some clothes and personal things!" I finally said to Sei with some exasperation.

"I'm not sure what to get?" He answered.

"Fine." I took him to a men's wear shop and got to play dress the prince with him. That was fun. We ended up buying him a half dozen shirts, some pants, boots, socks and under things. When he was dressed. He looked good. I was pleased. I think he was pleased to.

We went to another place and got him a valise for his clothes and some basic necessities, brushes, soap, etc.

"Do you need something for your beard?" I asked.

"No, it was permanently removed in training." He replied.

"Okay. I'm glad they left everything else." I said.

He blushed.

That evening, before dinner, I got taken to a private room and debriefed by Masters Harp and Dodger. I had to explain what happened.

Eventually we got to me saying, "I'm so sorry I lost the ship and crew and troopers."

Master Dodger replied, "Things happened. We have to learn to accept them. I have lost many troops over the years. I must remember them and learn from their loss. That is what it means to truly honor their sacrifice. Do you remember them?" He explained then asked.

"Yes Master."

"Did you learn?"

"Yes Master."

"Good enough."

"What are we going to do with your Storm Trooper you brought back?"

"I'm not sure, but I think we would need to ask him." I answered before I realized I hadn't admitted what he was. Sometimes the Force and apparently omniscient Masters can be so annoying.

"That is probably true."

"Do you think you are ready to assemble your lightsaber?"

"Yes Master."

Several balls I hadn't known were in the room rushed at me from different directions.

I caught them all.

Masters Harp and Dodger smiled.

I had to bring Sei food in his room since that night the Jedi had a private dinner. There was a lot of laughing and remembrances between the four Jedi Knights. I could tell they were all intensely pleased not to be alone anymore.

When dinner was over, I brought forward my Kyber crystal and tray of light saber parts. They floated up into the air and assembled.

Masters Harp and Dodger nodded again, clearly pleased.

The blade came down into my hand and I ignited the green blade.

"Isn't that?" Jedi Knight Harel began.

"Yes, that was the blade of Mistress Athacalena." Master Harp replied.

"How ever did you get it?" Jedi Knight Harel asked astonished.

"I found it." Master Harp answered.

"But wasn't her blade blue?" Jedi Knight Harel asked, puzzled.

"You know, I believe it was. How interesting." Master Dodger said.

*** And now a word from our sponsor! ***

Please don't miss that this is the third exciting book in this series. The original Legend of the Harp Books 1 and 2 are also on this site!

If you enjoy modern urban fantasy and my writing, you may also enjoy a series of three novels I have written in the Dresden Files universe of Jim Butcher, called Warlock of Omaha, Warlock of Omaha Squared and Warlock of Omaha Cubed!

This writer, like the story teller in the market of old, now has a hat out hoping for a small gratuity. There is no obligation and I'm grateful you took a moment to read. However, if my writing has found favor in your eyes, please take a moment to go to:

Pay

Pal

.me

/hemaccabe

and throw in a little something, a dime, a quarter, a dollar, etc.

While I love to write, I do have a spouse and a child and a job and many other claims on my time that don't understand why I would spend so many hours banging on a keyboard. A small tangible return would help smooth the way to allow me to provide many more stories.

Please help. Thank-you.


	22. Chapter 22

**Legend of the Harp**

 **Episode III: The Crucible**

 **Chapter 22: This is What It Means to Be Young**

*** Jedi Knight Furin Kazan, Baetar, Gift of Peace, Main Plaza ***

Six months had gone by since the Battle of Baetar.

I was sitting in the VIP guest section of the main plaza, in the old city area of Baetar's capital, Gift of Peace. In the center of the plaza, upon the dais sat Jors, Admiral Spruance, Colonel Bayonet, Major Bradley, Major Jackson and Major Chamberlain. They were about to receive the highest award granted by Baetar to a non-citizen, the Righteous Among the Galaxy Medal. Prime Minister Baru Zak was giving remarks proceeding the award.

Even though we had to land Revenge at the spaceport near Watchtower of Spring, Sky had graciously agreed to join me at this ceremony. She kept her general appearance as a female human of my particular sub-type but was dressed in a Harp Fleet Captain's uniform. Shield hovered carefully above keeping a watchful eye on proceedings. I had been seated next to our kind host, the charming and urbane Chief of Staff Mal Basyah.

It was strange, considering the long relationship I had cultivated with Baetar, but this was the first time I had been this close to Prime Minister Baru Zak and Chief of Staff Mal Basyah.

As pleasant as the scene was, and as nice as what the Prime Minister had to say was, my mind drifted back to recent events.

After waiting two more days on the relay station, I was minutes away from collapse when Sky raced in and found me. She placed Jiru in a stateroom aboard Revenge. Then she carefully collected me and my things up.

Sky put me in a chair on Revenge where she nursed me carefully. Still, I could feel she was angry with me. I wasn't supposed to let myself be hurt so badly. I wasn't supposed to scare her that she might be alone again. I could feel her anger was the dual edged blade that was also anger with herself. I knew she would have a hard time forgiving me as that would require forgiving herself first.

Sky and I had considered the possibility of being so injured in the past. Sky "fed" me carbon we kept aboard for just such occasions. This was a change of materials. Sky's civilization had used metals to make their nano cells, with an emphasis on titanium and mercury. Very resilient and effective, and the fact that my body had used the super-strong metal alloy, known as Beskar, from my Mandalorian breast plate in my formation had made me extra-resilient. But now Sky had the entire Known Galaxy's resources to look through, and by her standards, lots of free time to do it in. Sky had looked for better materials to use for our nano cells and found aggregated carbon crystal nanorods seemed very promising. Aggregated carbon crystal nanorods were incredibly strong and resilient. Several orders of magnitude better than the metals Sky's home civilization had used to make nano cells. On top of their other advantages, aggregated carbon crystal nanorods, when doped with Nitrogen became even harder and more resilient. When doped with Boron, the nanorods became super conducting which allowed for the transmission of thought. Still, as we both looked into this promising new possibility, there seemed like a, literally, infinite number of options for chemical composition. For example, adding other materials, like osmium, rhenium and tungsten seemed to have advantages. Rhenium particularly added a great deal of heat tolerance which would be critical for resisting blaster fire. However, we were stymied by the almost literally infinite number of combinations. Each combination, while promising, often had fatal flaws as well. A spectacular new material always seemed to be close, but just out of reach.

It was actually once again our research into the Zillo beast that had finally provided a solution. We found the composition of the Zillo beast's energy distributing armor cells was actually also a form of aggregated carbon crystal nanorods. Clearly millions of years of evolution had brought the Zillo beast to a nearly perfect solution. The fabled beast's trick first included having found a very stable structure and chemical composition for the aggregated carbon crystal nanorods. Beyond that, the aggregated carbon crystal nanorod nano cells were wreathed in chains of spherical C60 molecules, adding another layer of resilience. Also, when properly arranged, the C60 molecules also became superconducting, allowed for a second channel of superconductive energy transmission.

Building the aggregated carbon crystal nanorods with the nano tools in our materials lab on the New Temple, we were able to minimize micro cracks allowing substantial grain boundary strengthening, increasing hardness by almost a factor of seven.

In total, we expected dramatic improvements across the board, faster processing of data, better production and transmission of energy, greater speed, but mostly, just much tougher.

We had the new materials ready but hadn't used them. Making the change to the new materials would require switching one's entire body, which didn't seem worthwhile as it would take at least several weeks of being an invalid. I had speculated that if one of us became severely injured, it would be an ideal moment to make the change.

I remembered explaining this idea to Sky in an intellectual and hypothetical way to which she replied, "Don't you dare let yourself become so injured."

Under normal circumstances our bodies could harvest sufficient material from our environment to replace individual cells as they aged into non-usefulness. However, I had lost too much. I needed the help. Still, with so little of me left I had very little of me left to apply to producing new me. I remained in jeopardy. Still this was an ideal opportunity to make the change to the new material and Sky was doing her best to help me accomplish it.

Sky nursed me with energy from her own body which allowed me to direct more effort into building new cells. After 24 hours I was still very weak, but past the point of danger.

I was still weak as I sat with Sky there in the plaza. It was taking much longer to assemble the aggregated carbon crystal nanorods into cells in my body than expected. Still, I was convalescing nicely.

Once I was out of immediate danger, we had taken former Jedi Master Sa Tasta Burana, now bounty hunter Mahe Jiru to Elysia. I found a four-square kilometer piece of land closer to the beach and a resort city and much larger than the piece he had been considering, and therefore much more desirable and expensive. I purchased it. The site was also on the other side of the planet from the Harp's direct holdings. I had a permacrete road drilled in through the jungle to a building site near the center of the piece of land. I had the construction company then lay in a permacrete foundation large enough for a speeder shed, a landing pad for his ship and a nice cottage. I then ordered a one-bedroom cottage be built, larger and better appointed than the one Jiru had planned for himself. The cottage had a nice food prep area, lav and a separate sleeping area. I had utilities brought in, so he would have water, power and holonets, then paid for them to be delivered in perpetuity. I also arranged for regular food deliveries. Everything I could think someone would need to live quietly in that cottage. I even added a small per diem, so he would never need for money. Of course, I let him keep the Credits he had already accumulated. Sky had towed along his ship and speeder and they were placed there for him on his property.

I left him sitting there, in a comfortable chair, looking, but not paying attention to a large holovid display screen.

When I explained how I had chosen to deal with Jiru, Fio had piped up, "Why were you so merciful? He almost killed you!"

Jojo had answered, as was appropriate since he was her Master, "I can think of no worse punishment for him. Can you?"

Fio thought about it for a while and said, still sounding a bit confused, "I guess not."

*** Jedi Padawan Fio Brown, on Dandoran, New Korpluck Town ***

Sei and I took a few days to "convalesce." We had begun to take large picnic baskets out to remote spots just, so we would could have some privacy.

After a few days, I asked Sei, feeling far more fear in my stomach than I should have, "Do you know what you want to do yet?"

Sei looked at me seriously with his beautiful blue eyes and finally said, "I think I should join up with this Harp Militia. That way I could stay close to you."

I felt my insides melt at his answer all over again.

We signed Sei up. There would be a new basic class starting in four days which gave us just a little while longer.

I placed a thousand Credits on a chip for him, so he wouldn't have to worry much about money. We went and drew equipment together. Sei had none and most of mine had been ruined on Castanea. I basically replaced what I had lost. He picked out a corresponding set of guy gear, including self-heating/cooling canteen.

There were some differences. Sei didn't opt for a pistol. He picked a barrel for his B-300 that was shorter and heavier facilitating shooting more rapidly and with higher power. I generally chose a barrel that was longer and lighter to facilitate better accuracy at range and a lighter load out. He picked a pack that was a little larger proportionally, which, since he was much bigger than me, was substantially larger.

I modified his pack like my Mom had modified mine to have a padded pocket with individual, elastic sleeves for the drink capsules. I also made him a nice big batch of homemade oaf bird with noodles and dumplings soup capsules to get started.

*** Jedi Knight Jors Zaemon, Baetar, Gift of Peace, Main Plaza, on the Dais ***

This was my second time visiting this plaza. Getting this medal was nice and all, but I would have much preferred to be getting another of those sandwiches and watching kids play again. Can't always have what you want.

This ceremony Baetar was doing for us reminded me all too clearly and uncomfortably of another ceremony we had just concluded not too long before.

Over two hundred Harp Militia troops, of the sort made of flesh and blood, were laid to rest in our cemetery near New Korpluck Town. Many had empty coffin funerals as their bodies had been disintegrated or could not otherwise be recovered.

During the same ceremony, we also added over a hundred serial numbers to the memorial set aside for droids that could not be returned to service as the damage they had suffered was too extreme.

We also unveiled a special monument for Ball-72, the Ball droid who had sacrificed itself to save us on Doram.

I had spoken, "While we would never ask, much less order a droid, or any trooper, to take such action. Ball-72's actions saved a platoon of it's fellow troops and my life. Ball-72's actions may well have saved Doram Station and the lives of every living thing on Baetar. Ball-72 gave the last full measure of it's devotion to the cause of life, and all those left alive will never forget it's heroic actions."

I would happily trade this medal for those lives back, but, of course, it never worked that way. I grimaced inside thinking about the reorganization that awaited me back on Dandoran as I tried to fit back together pieces that didn't really go together so I could rebuild our three broken battalions. At least we had a lot of new recruits.

I looked down from the dais at my Padawan, who was sitting with that young man she had found, Sei I think his name was. He filled out his Harp Militia uniform pretty nicely. Clearly, she was very fond of Sei, which I had misgivings about. Having such relationships was not the Path. Still, it would be hard to sanction her when sitting quite close by was Furry with that strange, but very female, Sky. Really though, I kept thinking the Force would give me some apprehension about Fio being with that boy, but it didn't. In fact, the Force seemed to feel very peaceful about their liaison. It was not unknown for other Jedi to have formed strong bonds with non-Jedi that had served them and the Order well. Maybe this relationship would be like that.

I had thought for a moment that I had lost Fio. I didn't want to think how much that had hurt. My paternal feelings for Fio were probably not perfectly within the Path either.

I remembered how I had flashed to Fio's danger. The Force was telling me, in no uncertain terms, that Fio was suffering and in immediate mortal peril. I immediately went and considered a star chart. I noticed that while we were on the wrong side of the galaxy, Castanea was actually not that far from Respublica.

I put a call through to "Androccoles of Respublica" and was relieved when Tuck had popped up on the screen.

"What do you need now?" He had asked, a bit annoyed.

"I need a big favor." I replied.

"That's interesting. So do I. What do you need?" He replied.

"My Padawan is on Castanea. She is in imminent danger. Can you help her?" I asked, feeling that he would definitely answer in the negative.

"Certainly, I'll do that regardless. However, I need something as well." He answered to my surprised relief.

"What do you need?" I asked off balance because of his unexpected answer.

"My position here on Respublica has been deteriorating since I let a certain group of ship designers escape along with a large terrorist attack on a hotel. I need a new place to stay." Tuck explained.

"That's fine. The offer we made to you may have sounded jocular, but it was sincere. If you're ready to resume your duties in the Order, you're welcome. If you're not, still come and we'll do our best to keep you safe." I offered hopefully.

"I'm glad you said that, Furry agrees?" He asked.

"Of course, he wants you more than me." I answered.

Tuck laughed, "He probably does. He was always so serious. I thought I was doing well when I found this place after the Order fell, but I have missed being a Jedi. I'm very eager to return to my duties."

"Then you are very welcome. Please come to us." I invited.

When Fio came down the ramp of Tuck's flamboyant ship, I was more happy and relieved than was probably proper for a Jedi, more like, I suspect, a Father would feel. Then that boy came out. I could clearly feel their emotional connection. I had bristled in a way that I suspect also had more in common with the way a Father feels.

Tuck had brought the Dorsaix. The Harp had been trying to get the Dorsaix to work with us for years. Apparently the Dorsaix were picky about who they would deal with and that did not include criminal enterprises, which the Harp was clearly perceived as.

When Tuck brought the Dorsaix to Dandoran we were able to show them around. Apparently, another problem we had been having with the Dorsaix was that their leadership had not wanted to pick a fight with the Empire so directly. Seeing that we weren't really a criminal conspiracy, combined with the Empire starting to lean on the Dorsaix homeworld of Formalhaut, meant the Dorsaix weren't so opposed to dealing with us anymore.

After we negotiated a bit, we were able to come to an arrangement with Dorsaix High Command. The platoon of Dorsaix that came with Tuck would stay with Tuck. The Dorsaix would also provide a company of advisors who would help train our troops. Further, when our troops were deployed, the advisors would deploy with and fight alongside our troops. Bayo and I knew a thing or two about training soldiers. Bayo and I had spent our lives in one form of training or another, broken only by practical application of said training. Still, the Dorsaix had been training pike and crossbowmen for over a thousand years. They knew things about training troops and assembling units that only comes from having done it, extremely successfully, for generations.

Even if the Dorsaix advisors were only as good as we were, or even a bit worse, they were a multiple. Bayo and I can't be every place all the time. Those advisors could be in a lot of places. The part where they would fight alongside, that was precious. I knew the difference between a platoon that stands and fights and a platoon that panics and folds can easily be one good person. After spending a bit of time with the Dorsaix, I KNEW they were solid. It was a big add.

We had also arranged for training exchanges with Baetar. Our troops would come to Baetar and get experience in Baetar's heavier gravity and desert conditions. Baetari troops would come to Dandoran and get to train in green forests and hills. Expertise would be shared, deepen and grow.

*** Jedi Knight Furin Kazan, Baetar, Gift of Peace, Main Plaza ***

I looked up at the sky as the Prime Minister's remarks continued. Was that a glint I saw?

It was full daylight, but it was possible.

Since the battle, there had been a lot to clean up on Baetar.

There had been well funded efforts in galactic news holonets and opinion sites to somehow spin the attack on Baetar as somehow being Baetar's fault. Unfortunately for the well-funded effort, a well-known team of documentarists had covered the whole event. Also, a large trove of the enemy coalition's internal propaganda, intended for only internal audiences, not made in Galactic Common, had fallen into the documentarist's hands and been translated showing incontestably that they had intended genocide.

Even the most shameless Senators ran for cover after that. At least for a while, it would be harder to rally condemnation for Baetar.

Gi Ora had come to the Rock with twenty-three fellow senior and very skilled Baetari pilots. They would help train Harp pilots. Despite the fact that we had an agreement, of course it wasn't that simple. Baetar didn't like the X-Wing. I had to admit, the Nesher II that was just entering production _wa_ s a better ship. Unfortunately, Baetar and BSI, Baetar Spaceship Industries, built the Neshers like custom racers. Each ship was hand built with the best technology Baetar had. This production method insured each craft would be the best ship it could be. Unfortunately, this production method was also painfully slow and would require a long time to replace the substantial losses Baetar had suffered in the most recent battle. It was also not a method of production that could be easily increased, even with the application of massed Credits. The slow rate of production was why Baetar had kept the older Kfirs and Lavis in service.

So, I couldn't buy Nesher IIs and they didn't like the X-Wing. After a bit of discussion, we determined that they might be willing to accept the X-Wings if they had better avionics.

Currently, we had two squadrons of X-Wings which were attached to the Corellian Patriotic Fleet. We had two more X-Wing squadrons that were completely Harp fleet. Lastly, we had two squadrons that were not yet manned. One of the reasons I needed the Baetar pilots. That didn't include the squadron's worth of X-Wings I had provided to the so called "Rebel Alliance" and the other X-Wings I had given to clients like Saw Gerrera. Also, I had no intention of stopping at four squadrons.

We worked out a deal that BSI would provide upgraded avionics suites for the Harp specific X-Wings. I had to admit, compared to the Nesher targeting systems and the systems on Revenge, the stock avionics on the X-Wings were clearly more about price than quality and a bit rudimentary. I made sure we would keep the simple pilot interface, but the clunky targeting computer was going to be replaced with a HUD based system that should be far faster and more accurate.

This agreement finally allowed Gi Ora and associates to make their way to Dandoran. I greeted them personally when they arrived.

I knew that all pilots were taking a break to watch the proceedings, but since their arrival, the Baetari pilots had been working hard to bring our green pilots up to speed. We also wanted to start another class to start filling the empty squadron's seats and be ready when more ships came online. It would also be good to have more than one pilot per craft.

Jojo, Fio, Sky and I had also taken some time to train with Gi Ora's pilots. They were good. We had all learned a lot.

In the sky over Baetar now flew the former Akiva, renamed the Sa'ar, under the control of the newly formed Baetar Space Navy. The Sa'ar oversaw the new shipyard Baetar had received from the Harp as a gift. A new Lola Sayu class ship took shape in that yard. The still available parts from Corellia already having arrived. The others would be acquired elsewhere or fabbed here in Baetar space. BSI, and their chosen Chief Engineer, Shim Shon, was spearheading getting that shipyard running. Corbeen, Jotun, my ship designers and consultants from Zerpen, among others, had already been here to help. The yard and Sa'ar's sister were coming along nicely.

That had been a discussion with Jojo.

"You know we already have missions planned for Akiva?" Jojo announced.

"I know." I replied.

"So?" Jojo added when I didn't speak right up.

"Think about who is manning that ship? We'll have another ship being crewed by top flight Baetaris who will be loyal allies. When the Empire thinks about pushing here again, they'll think twice.

"That one ship will be like a seed, with the shipyard, it will become many ships much faster and better than we could build them.

"Yes, we will suffer delay. We'll have to build Akiva again from the keel up, but it's worth it."

Jojo nodded. He knew I was right.

Watchtower Space Port also now had an orbital transfer station being supported by two grav tugs, courtesy of the Harp. This would change the economy of Baetar, hopefully for the better.

Trade had been a problem for Baetar due to her political isolation, remote location and rough neighborhood. I had helped a lot by bringing them in shipments of fuel which had previously been a real chronic issue for them. Previously, when fuel had been available on the galactic market at all, purchasing the fuel had required the Baetari to pay exorbitant prices. Of course, Hope Fleet would continue to sell Baetar fuel at fair prices. We would also sell them other resources like durasteel, grav plate and medical supplies among other things. It wasn't really charity. I had developed a stable of fuel suppliers, Quadria, Bespin and Sylapse, among others. I needed to keep buying from them. Every cargo purchased from a non-Mining Guild supplier weakened the Mining Guild which remained a strategic target. I had also built a collection of material suppliers on Mustelidae, Sultoon and other places. I needed markets for their product. It was excellent business on both sides.

I had also been providing a number of big ticket gifts to Baetar. Now, with the station, they were able to export many more products. Baetar had a number of cutting edge tech industries whose export prospects had been undercut by the high cost of shipping their products, with the station, they were no longer so undercut. Supporting Baetar's high tech exports hurt the Techno Union, another strategic target.

Baetar also produced food, particularly fruit, oil and wine, which had been unprofitable to export in mass without the station and tugs, but which were now making a name for themselves on the galactic luxury market. Hope Shipping would be the preferred shipper for the port, putting another needle into the Trade Federation.

It was early days, but Baetar was experiencing an economic boom. They would definitely be able to pay for what they needed.

Since the Harp would benefit a great deal economically from this deal, I know there are those who will think I made these choices for Credits. We'll need to earn a lot of Credits before we pay for the shipyard, spaceport and tugs. Years' worth. Not a great choice from a purely business perspective. However, every step taken to economically strengthen an ally like Baetar served my war. Every step taken to mitigate the damage to the Harp's balance sheet meant there would be more resources later when I had no doubt they would be needed.

I also had Zerpen deep in the corporate sector. They now also had a spaceport, grav tugs and a shipyard. Lola Sayu had a sister being constructed there as well. The first sister would come to us. After that, some ships would be sold to Corporate Sector navies and some to us. All would be pointed squarely at an Empire that grew less popular by the day. Zerpen was also racing to build up the fabs which would give us better production for shields, conduit and other shipboard systems so we would have options other than the ever more restricted Corellian market.

The Harp had rescued a group of Spires citizens because it was the right thing to do. That action, less than a year past, seemed like the other side of a lifetime now. I would be lying if I didn't admit I was also hoping for more as well. Spires is one of the great production centers in the galaxy for speeder craft. As the Harp militia grew, the need for vehicles grew as well. It would be nice if we could add some armor and artillery. In the short run, we really wanted a lorry that could be used as a mobile dock for the Ball Droids. A single lorry with landing spaces for twenty and the ability to do simultaneous refueling would dramatically improve our capabilities. It would be great for the lorry to also have a shop capable of doing minor repairs as well.

Working with some Spires experts we had rescued, our ship design team and the ability to buy ruggedized lorry hover platforms on the galactic market, and since I was the Harp, at cost, that production line should have the first production model of the Ball Droid Service lorry rolling off right now.

Sultoon was a bottomless well of personnel for our fleet. As the message that the Harp platform existed and was available for trade, an endless stream of second children, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, streamed in to join the Harp Fleet. All of them the sort of people who were more familiar with living in and operating ships than living on the ground. Ideal for navy crew. We also got plenty of recruits from Fresia at hiring fairs and the rest of the galaxy kept dribbling in as well.

The five thousand Spires rescues yielded quite a few individuals who wanted to join an active military cause against the Empire, but they were dwarfed by the vast numbers of Emberleneans. We were worried at first that the recruits from Emberlene were just looking for food and shelter. They were, but they were also very much looking for a chance to strike back at the Empire who had done this to them.

Soon we would be able to not only replace our losses, but we were anticipating adding three more battalions as well.

I had ship yards and training facilities across the galaxy and we were building.

*** Jedi Padawan Fio Brown, on Dandoran, New Korpluck Town ***

Sei picked a good time to go through Basic, if he was looking to be promoted. Freedom, Hero and Liberty had all suffered substantial casualties. Since Dodger and Bayo believed in leading from the front, casualties among higher ranking soldiers was always proportionally higher.

We were also getting in large numbers of recruits from the recently rescued Spires citizens, Emberlene and just dribbling in from all over the galaxy, especially Corellia. It wasn't yet clear how many battalions we would end up with, but Colonel Bayo was likely to be in for a promotion.

I realized this might be a problem, because we would likely only need two new Colonels and all three Majors seemed like excellent candidates.

It would also be a problem because while we might have a surplus of Colonel candidates, we were really short on everything from R2 to R5. Sei, due to his experience and being Sei was an R2 within a month of graduating Basic. Three months after that he was an R3. I had nothing to do with it. All we needed was for people to think I was showing favoritism. That was unpleasant, as it meant we had to keep our distance a lot.

*** Jedi Knight Furin Kazan, Baetar, Gift of Peace, Main Plaza ***

As we adjourned from the plaza, medals having been awarded, to a wonderful banquet of local delicacies I could not help but think back to another meal.

When Keely, Fio and I had recovered sufficiently, we sat down to a meal at the villa south east of New Korpluck Town. Whatever else we had suffered or lost, sitting at a dinner with four fellow Jedi again was something wonderful.

I had thought I would never see Keely again. To find her alive was a miracle of the Force.

Having Tuck return to the Path was almost as gratifying. That three of us from a single childhood group had survived was such an unexpected blessing. My happiness was tempered by the realization no other foursome was likely so intact.

Eventually Tuck, Keely and I would have a private moment for Posh. Posh was KIA from Order 66, there was clear holo footage of the event from several angles and her body had been recovered. We would all take a moment to cry over each other's shoulders, draw comfort and then let her go to the Force in peace, no doubt a blessing to all living things.

We took time and discussed what we all should be doing. Jojo and I would continue as we had been.

Tuck would join Jojo in security.

"I could use the help. Physical security I can handle, the more sophisticated stuff is a bit beyond me." Jojo explained.

"I wouldn't want to step on your toes, certainly you would remain the Order's acting Master of the Guard." Tuck ventured.

"We both know that your experience managing security on Respublica is exactly what we need here." Jojo answered.

With that Tuck had thrown himself into resolving our security issues. We found how Jiru had gotten into our communications. Tuck reinforced comm security and added substantially stronger encryption to all transmissions. It was annoying, but clearly quite necessary.

Tuck also unmasked three Imperial agents in New Korpluck town. One was killed when we tried to take her. The other two agreed to work with us. They became double agents and started sending back the kinds of reports we wanted.

In those reports, Korpluck Town was a dirty, underdeveloped mud hole. The Harp Militia was nothing more than a bunch of heavily armed goons and the whole place was nothing more than the fief of a money and power-hungry pirate chieftain.

"Why do you want those double agents giving reports like that?" Jojo asked.

"Yes, I know it's not very complimentary, but now we're not the sort of thing the overstretched Imperial Navy would want to waste much time on, particularly as it means they would have to stray here into Hutt space to do it. If they heard a well-financed, well equipped, streamlined and effective resistance army led by Jedi was being built here, how long do you think we'd have?" Tuck answered.

Jojo nodded.

Keely would retire to the New Temple.

"It seems your new Order has no librarian. Perhaps I can serve the Order in that way?" Keely offered.

Keely had been training in the Temple Library. When Order 66 had come down, she had been away on some remote planet doing research. Perhaps, one day, she would have replaced Mistress Jocasta-Nu, perhaps not. Now we would never know. However, I had those Holochrons bequeathed to me by Master Arunx as well as a wealth of other information that was just piling up. Further, it would be useful to have someone keeping an eye on things at the New Temple.

Sky had made some decisions about our specific future.

"From now on, Revenge and I will ALWAYS be with you. We will not separate for different missions. Further, Shield will no longer be your droid administrator, he will join us as well." Sky had informed me.

I had to admit, based on recent experience, that made some sense. "In my desire to get more things done faster, perhaps I had stretched resources a bit too thin?" I had thought to myself.

"Yes, much too thin." Sky chose to add.

Still, the new relay was up and working. We had excellent, secure comm to that new base the Alliance was building near Yavin.

"That makes sense, but I do have these other things that will only require us to split up for just a..." I started to say, only to see and feel Sky's reply.

"Maybe we can delay a few." I said feeling the better part of valor.

Keely would be able to take over the droid foundry supervision while she went through the mountain of docs we had retrieved from the Temple and acquired elsewhere.

I looked up and could see Shield maintaining security surveillance above us as we enjoyed the Baetari banquet. Yes, I couldn't really enjoy the food very much, but they did have an excellent symphony.

*** Admiral Scharn, Imperial Command, Eriadu ***

"The defeat of our allies at Baetar was unfortunate." The former Grand Admiral and newly minted Grand Moff Tarkin announced across the briefing table.

On his side of the table, the Moff had his operations officers flanking him at each elbow.

Across the table, with far fewer cohorts, was Admiral Scharn, presenting his report on Baetar in person.

"I take full responsibility." Admiral Scharn replied.

"Do you know what you did wrong?" Grand Moff Tarkin asked.

"Yes, I put far too much faith in the credibility of our allies in this matter. I should have established my own independent ability to oversee the progress of the conflict earlier, probably from the very beginning. That way, when that allied fleet arrived to support the Baetari, I could have intervened as well." Admiral Scharn explained without pride.

Admiral Scharn's answer hung in the air for some time. It would not be unusual in the Imperial Fleet for an Admiral to be arrested and executed at this point. Finally, Grand Moff Tarkin replied, "Yes, you should have. Still it would have been hard to predict our allies would be so bent on their pride and deception that they would have followed it to suicide.

"You have served the Empire and me well up to this point Admiral. Also, you didn't panic at the end and forget my final orders on this matter. For these reasons, and the fact that you have not dissembled, as so many others in your position have, and presented pathetic excuses of unachievable objectives, or magic Jedi, to excuse your failure," and with this, Grand Moff Tarkin looked both ways at his staff officers who quickly put their heads down in shame, "I will forgive your failure this one time. Do not fail me again."

*** Jedi Knight Furin Kazan, Baetar, Gift of Peace, Main Plaza ***

I had ship yards and training facilities across the galaxy. I had allies who were getting stronger each day. Yes, a determined effort by the Empire could likely still wipe us out like an Imperial boot might crush a death stick. However, moment by moment, day by day, ship by ship, base by base, ally by ally, battalion by battalion and Jedi by Jedi, that was getting to be harder and harder. Eventually, it would be hard enough that it could not be done.

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